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Pic Of The Day
First Google Maps' "streetview" captured a drug deal. Now the accidental Big Brother has found something even funnier: A bike tumble in Australia. From all of us in New York, to whoever you are Down Under: Ha-ha. [via Kensington Victoria]
Embarrassing Moment Captured For The Internet To See
First Google Maps' "streetview" captured a drug deal. Now the accidental Big Brother has found something even funnier: A bike tumble in Australia. From all of us in New York, to whoever you are Down Under: Ha-ha. [via Kensington Victoria]
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Advertising
Even the Help is Superior at Whole Food
What could be more mind-numbing than checking out someone else's groceries? No, you have to press yes. No, the green button by the red one. So sometimes checkout people call their friends to pass the time at the most listless job ever. Sure, it's annoying, but who could blame them? Fortunately, checking out free-range beef is a completely different professional experience at Whole Foods. Their checkout "team" is so engaged with their work, they don't need to make personal calls. Whole Foods actually hires only friendless orphans to ensure that nothing stands between you and your organic arugula. [via Racked].jpg "dademily_rockcenter%282%29.jpg")
asking for it
Emily Brill to Dad: Internet Notoriety Is a Job!
Today on Essentially Emily, Emily Brill asserts that Nick Denton is not the only reason why people bother to read Essentially Emily. No, they care about the pseudo socialite who is "friends" with Kristian Laliberte because of her dad, former media tycoon and current airport security specialist Steve Brill, and not because Gawker occasionally highlights her wit and wisdom. Emily claims, "Nick's greatest fantasy, indeed, would have been a public feud with Steven Brill over his humiliated daughter." I've been to Nick's apartment, and his fantasies have nothing to do with Steve Brill. More »
values
Doctors Made Mommy Pretty
If you're in the market for a good story-time read, I recommend My Beautiful Mommy, a heartwarming tale of personal growth and breast augmentation by plastic surgeon Michael Salzhauer. The book is aimed at helping kids understand that even mommies can be insecure. See, even adults love instant gratification; but for them, face lifts work better than candy. More »
Department of Duh
Kids Keep In Touch In Funny Ways These Days
Hey guys, big news from the University of Oxford Press Blog today. Big news. The internet and cell phones have changed—possibly even revolutionized—the way kids keep in touch with one another. Instead of catching up with acquaintances, people just follow their away messages. (Note: I'm almost positive away messages have something to do with Instant Messaging, which is like a faster form of email, but I'm not 100%.) And sometimes people use their cell phones not to talk but to send text messages, a form of written communication sent through phones. Oh, and also this is rotting the very foundations of civilized society. More ground-breaking news after the jump. More »
Shut Up, Brooklyn
Even if the Brooklyn Literary Scene is dead, or as Colson Whitehead put it, annoying and irrelevant, there still are a lot of writers kicking it in the borough of churches. In today's New York Observer, Fort Greene's own Doree Shafrir made an extensive list of the Brooklyn literarati, including neighborhood listings. Not to sound like an asshole, but even I didn't know about some of the writers and editors on the list. The Observer's non-college educated readership will be totally lost. More »
Gawker Stalker For The Ultra-Literary Set
Even if the Brooklyn Literary Scene is dead, or as Colson Whitehead put it, annoying and irrelevant, there still are a lot of writers kicking it in the borough of churches. In today's New York Observer, Fort Greene's own Doree Shafrir made an extensive list of the Brooklyn literarati, including neighborhood listings. Not to sound like an asshole, but even I didn't know about some of the writers and editors on the list. The Observer's non-college educated readership will be totally lost. More »
things that just occurred to us
This Romantic Comedy Made No Sense
Other the standard rom-com plot problems with Notting Hill, like two strangers falling in love, the biggest hole in this movie is Hugh Grant's job as the owner of a travel book store. I suppose it's endearing, but really it just makes no sense. His inventory would need to be restocked constantly. And who would even frequent this shop? In travel books, you want information, not obscurity. And the best can be just as easily acquired at any independently owned shop as from Hugh Grant's character's specialty store. Yes, I realize this movie came out in 1999. I'm just saying..jpg "hippy%282%29.jpg")
Deep Questions
Is 'Home Buying For Hipsters' Actually Just For Tools?
Like "cool," "hipster" is a multivalent word with no set definition but many different meanings. But from a real estate developers' perspective, if you live in Brooklyn, have read a Jonathan Lethem book or have gone to Studio B, you qualify. Sorry! Even so, no real hipster admits to being one. That's worse than saying you want to be cool. Which makes Home Buying For Hipsters — a monthly real estate advising meet-up with ties to the Corcoran Group — so perplexing. What tool would show up to their event tonight, which is aimed at a demographic no one would acknowledge being a part of? More »
Dyslexia To Save Print
[Cover of today's Chicago Sun-Times, printed in reverse to promote a campaign fighting gun violence toward children.] MORE »
Advice
Sometimes I miss print. At least then, there were space constraints. The internet knows no editing. Today on Salon, constantly wrong-headed advice columnst Cary Tennis fields a 1,300 word question from a melancholy Ivy League student whose primary problem is that she's kinda homesick and no one pays any attention to her in her huge faceless elite East Coast school. She misses misses the West Coast! She doesn't even want to go into publishing anymore! Also, roommate drama! Tennis's advice: exercise. Yes, YouTube is great, but this column wouldn't have happened in the pre-Web world. [Salon]
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The McClatchy Company
Motivational Video Filled With Lies
Times are tough for journalists. Sure, there are humorous t-shirts, but that's probably not enough to save the industry. The McClatchy Company, which owns The Sacramento Bee and The Miami Herald, put up a video of their CEO Gary Pruitt to encourage and dupe their employees. In the clip, Pruitt says that no company won more than their two Pulitzer prizes. The Washington Post's six apparently don't count. He also claimed that no organization won as many George Polk awards as their two, when The Nation Institute won as many. But surely Pruitt wouldn't lie about the future of the McClatchy. Everything's going great there.
Relax, Internet
Ryan Adams Could Never Say Goodbye To Us
Poor Sheila. The week she chose to frolic abroad, her internet boyfriend, the musician Ryan Adams, seemingly shut down his blog. But even on vacation, she couldn't tear herself away from her work, nay, her love. When news of the shut down came in, she commented, "why is this genuinely upsetting me that his tumblr is gone, even though i am on vacation and should not even be reading gawker?" Well, Sheila, there's some good news and there's some bad news. The good news is that Ryan Adams's blog is back. The bad news is you're missing the story. Upon his return, RyRy admitted to being as obsessed with you as you are with him. More »
journalismism
How to Get Hotties to do Your Work For You
Is there anything worse about being a reporter than transcribing? Well, maybe, but listening (and relistening) to tape from an interview is one of the most mind-numbing tasks in journalism. Actually, your mind can't even turn numb, because you need to be at attention the whole time. Added to the fun is hearing your voice on tape, which at first makes you wonder why you haven't been punched in the face more for your bizarre inflections. Once you get to the top of the journalism heap, though, you can just get American Apparel models to transcribe for you! As long as your husband hired them to intern at his legendary literary magazine, anyway. Even if you yourself aren't actually writing for that particularly legendary literary magazine!More »
fox business
Parody of News Network Invites on Parody of Blogger
The Harvard educated and camera ready investment banker Muffie Benson-Perella would be a great guest on any business show. Her blog's slogan is "Dive Into the Muff!" And who wouldn't want to? This photogenic business woman is the founder of the Founder of Muff Cap, LLC., "an invitation only, private investment vehicle for prestigious and accredited investors only, employing an actively managed, long-short strategy." Plus, in prep school she concentrated in Contemporary French Poetry, and she was a part of the school's "exclusive" French Club. Fortunately, Muffie is just a caricature of vile she-bankers. Unfortunately, she's just the type the insipid Fox Business Happy Hour would love to have on as a guest. The network asked her to appear on an upcoming episode. After the jump, Fox's invitation to her mockery. More »
that's what She said
"That's What She Said": It Always Works
Everyone on the internet loves The Office. And many people on the internet enjoy making lengthy, obsessive YouTube montages of things they like. The benefit of Office boss Michael Scott's favorite catchphrase is that it saves idiots from having to create their own joke whenever there's an opening. ("That's what she said!") But why wade through the plot and subtleties of the show to get to those four magic words? So, we present to you, "That's What She Said," the YouTube montage. After the jump, the second best part of the show, Jim's facial expressions, once again stripped of context and presented with some sort of dramatic musical accompaniment. More »
in bad taste
Can't Wait For Tomorrow's 'Post' Headline
Cyanide Death Rocks Park Slope! Yes, it may be a slow news day, but a senior citizen died under mysterious, poison-y circumstances in a posh neighborhood of Brooklyn. With the Pope finally gone, this gives the tabs a pittance of material. [via Gothamist]
Netiquette
Facebook Chat Is Only Good For Spreading STDs
Facebook chat will no doubt improve the sex lives of college students everywhere. Asking for someone's AIM is totally obvious; it's like the oldest move in the Web 1.0 book. Facebook message flirting takes forever. So Facebook chat just may become the most subtle and fastest way to get laid in college. The only problem is that I'm not in college. I'm an adult who uses Facebook to judge the lives of people I knew in college. Facebook chat reminds me that I'm old. But that's only part of the problem. More »
patterns
Elaine's The Blogger Bar Of Its Time
If Gay Talese had a blog, he'd be all about promoting Last Call at Elaine's, Brian McDonald's memoir of bartending at the legendary old-school New York intellectual hang-out. Elaine's was to the '60s and '70s what the Magician was to three years ago. That means that McDonald is as connected to old-school media types as you can get without a masthead position at the New York Review of Books. So even though this book appears to be an account of an era only a few dozen people could care about it, it's the right few dozen people. Brian McDonald is Sloane Crosley for The Olds. At a reading last week on the Upper East Side, the book sold out, presumably to its entire audience.
kelly kreth
Breaking: Girl Kisses Girl
The standard of self-incriminating over-sharing necessary to make a splash in the New York media world has risen so much in this post-Julia Allison world. So what's an aspiring fameball to do? Literally whore herself out for a good story? Well. Former New York Press sex columnist and tit-obsessive Kelly Kreth recently went to a swingers club to remind us all that she looks good naked, enjoys girl-on-girl action, and is available for freelance work. Anything to get your name out there. Proof of Kreth's commitment to becoming a media celebrity after the jump. More »
Graffiti "Scribble" On The Rise
Rudy Giuliani's legacy is being tagged away. Graffiti is back and more popular than ever &mdash complaints of taggings have risen 81.5% from 2006 to 2007. "It's not art - it's just scribble," said a random dude complaining to the New York Post. But even though graffiti has become more prevalent under Bloomberg's tenure, let's not forget that he has protected the rich from other eyesores like fatties and smokers. [NYP]
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Gross
Subway Etiquette: Pooping Is Too Much
The subway is maybe the only place in New York where you can pick your nose, eat McDonald's and read chick lit without shame. That's part of the magic of this city. But occasionally someone goes too far, and the pact of no staring, touching, or judging is broken. Like when someone openly pees into a cup in front of a steel column while waiting for the D train. But that was just the first transgression. After the jump, a picture of the same man about to perform transgression number two. More »
Irony
'NYT Magazine' Green Issue Not Actually Green
It was self-righteous and catered to the rich. But was the New York Times Magazine "Green Issue" green enough? Not according to anyone who actually cares about the future of this precious island we call Planet Earth. The magazine was printed on non-recycled paper. Egad! That means all those eco-friendly car ads were actually leaving a gigantic carbon footprint. Vanity Fair's annual green issues are also printed on non-recylced paper. It's like these magazines really just care about the advertising market for environmentalism instead of the actual environment. Let the Times Magazine Green Issue be a lesson: Never care about anything unless you're prepared to be called out as total a hypocrite. [Folio]
Quick Rant
