Gawker: intern mary

Stuff Roommate People Like

Pareene — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:16:52 EDT

Intern Mary started a blog! It's brilliant, it's simple: roommate stories! It's called We Share a Toilet and she's seeking submissions. Also, probably, an agent. [We Share a Toilet]

Over 100 Spitzerfuckgate Headlines Analyzed

marypilon — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 13:07:42 EDT

A collective "HOLY SHIT" was heard round the media world yesterday over the news that New York Governor Eliot "Spitz" Spitzer paid for play with painted harlots in the Mayflower hotel. A classic political sex scandal with all the fixin's is a welcome break from droll primary coverage. After the jump, a graphical breakdown of media reaction to 3/10/08.

Bill O'Reilly On Veterans

Pareene — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 17:08:58 EST

It's no secret that Bill "Papa Bear" O'Reilly is a media punchingbag. So when Intern Mary heard about his recent claim that homeless veterans don't exist, she began to wonder if Bill's comments were taken out of context and spun into oblivion by crazed bloggers like they always seem to be. Does Bill only talk about patriotism and veterans when he's trying to make a point? Yearning to discover the real Bill, she dove into Billoreilly.com once more to find out just what Bill has said about vets in the past. The results of the search, in handy chart form (along with representative samples!), after the jump.

Some excerpts:

The Factor remained puzzled by the approach of some zealots. "I think you can dissent about the Iraq war, but do you think it's patriotic to come on TV and accuse the US of mashing a baby's testicles? I think slander is unpatriotic."
-3/19/07

So the [Houston] Chronicle believes that showing coffins will lead to more respect for our valiant troops? A cynic might say this is a ruse, that the Chronicle wants to show coffins to add more emotion to the Iraq debate. An honest reporter might then ask the Chronicle what it has done to respect the U.S. armed forces. The Chronicle contributes to charities, but has not given one penny to any veterans organization.
-2/8/07

Wednesday's Patriot: Sears CEO Aylwin Lewis, who is doing everything to make Sears a friendly place for employees who are military veterans. And the Pinhead: Model Heidi Klum, who pretends her breasts are machine guns in an ad for Victoria's Secret.
-11/28/07

100 Jamie Lynn Spears Headlines Analyzed

marypilon — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 12:15:14 EST

With the news that Britney's little sister Jamie Lynn Spears was preggers came an avalanche of media insanity. Will we have not one, but two Spears vaginas to keep track of now? Whose baby will fetch more cash for tabloid photos? Whose baby's daddy will have the worse rap career? And what about Gramma Spears' bookdeal? Let's take a look at the sibling rivalry and the JLS reaction.

Click to enlarge!

This chart reveals the thrust of more than 100 of the most recent headlines for stories on "Jamie Lynn Spears." Even though a hearty 12 percent of headlines were generic announcements of her being impregnated, 15 percent were comments about her getting knocked up as Brit's sister.

Some highlights:

TMZ interviewed Uncle Odus:

He tells us the family was "shocked' and yet "we aren't." As a pastor, Uncle Odus says he's seen "this type of thing" more often than he'd like.

Papa Bear O'Lielly added her to the pinhead club:
On the pinhead front, 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant. The sister of Britney says she is shocked. I bet. Now most teens are pinheads in some ways. But here the blame falls primarily on the parents of the girl, who obviously have little control over her or even over Britney Spears. Look at the way she behaves.

But Mary J. Blige was there to offer support:
"Stay strong, baby girl. If that's her choice (to keep the baby) then congratulations. Hope she's responsible and I hope she understands what that brings.

So what's older brother Bryan Spears up to these days?

Dave Eggers Is Still Concerned About Africa!

marypilon — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 10:40:05 EST

"I'm here to see Dave Eggers."

"..."

"What is the What?"

"What?"

And so began my amazing night with Dave Eggers.

Okay, so it wasn't exactly a candlelit dinner (if ONLY), but I did get a front row seat last night when he spoke at NYU's Center for Global Affairs.

He was plugging "What is the What," his last-year's novel about the Lost Boys of Sudan. I knew his velocity. He was heartbreaking, staggering and yes, genius (or penis).

Apparently—you may be surprised—the news from Africa sucks. And we still suck for not doing enough. You may click here for more info.

Foreign Affairs editor Gideon Rose was on hand to interview Eggers and one of the Lost Boys (but not the one featured in the book) named Abraham. Eggers and Abraham were far more eloquent than Rose, who wouldn't shut up about his opinions of Judaism and also was really into rereading passages of Eggers' books when we all knew that Eggers' velvet voice would do it more justice. Rose even read the last paragraph of the book when he knew that nearly half of the audience hadn't finished it. Okay, so that's clearly not as bad as ethnic cleansing, but he's still a dick.

Genocide aside, here are the unsurprising details about Eggers that I could gather:

He's a Mac user (hipsterous maximus).

His password has 8 or 9 characters (any guesses on what it could be???).

He totes a Moleskine, which undoubtedly is packed with pictures of staplers, witty reinventions of dialogue and unintelligible footnotes.

He was wearing brown shoes, the heel of the right shoe was held together with what looked like black electrical tape.

He had a few gray hairs, but totally in that hot George Clooney way.

He fiddled with a Uniball pen for over an hour, but it was ultimately endearing.

To write dialogue in his books, he has to have it on tape.

He signed books FOREVER and spoke cheerfully with his hordes of oh-so-worldlytrendyinterestingwellread fans. He seemed—!!!—genuinely interested in what they had to say.

I know he's poor, married with a kid, blah blah blah, but he knows where to find me.

Exactly What Makes James Lipton So Irritating

Joshua Stein — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:05:23 EST

Our Intern Mary has applied her sharp analytical mind and excellent Excel skill to Inside Inside, the wretched memoir by Inside the Actor's Studio host James Lipton. We've already examined the man's choice in epigraphs (pretentious), his favorite holiday (ridiculous) and his taste in women (whorish). But now the hard data is in.

This data is culled only from the first chapter but one can fairly extrapolate that similar proportions will be found throughout the 464 pages of the book. In one paragraph on page 8, he mentions: Ibsen, Chekhov, Shakespeare, Moliere, Aeschylus, Goldoni, Sheridan, Wilde and Maeterlinck.

[Click to enlarge]

The 220 Best Women's Halloween Costumes On Amazon And eBay

Choire — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 17:30:06 EDT

For the truly last-minute shoppers among us, our brave Intern Mary has looked at the top 220 Halloween costumes for women on Amazon and eBay. Would you like to be a sexy witch? A plus-size witch? A Bavarian woman? A sexy firewoman? A sexy bumblebee? A sexy tinwoman? THAT IS JUST A FEW OF THE 220 OPTIONS THAT YOU HAVE!

And here, in the most psychotic graph EVER CREATED, ARE ALL THE REST OF THEM.

Click to enlarge, IF YOU DARE! THE DEAD WILL RISE AND WALK AMONGST US IN "GIRL'S POODLE JACKET" AND "WONDER WOMAN (TODDLER)"! HAIL SATAN!

What Do Celebrities Blog About?

Emily Gould — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 10:33:00 EDT

"That's how she rolls. Just when you least expect it, Mariska throws you a curve. Over the years, I've come to expect nothing less from the hardest working—and needless to say, hottest—perp-buster on TV." That's from the "blog" of T.V. star Mariska Hargitay, which is written solely by people who are not Mariska Hargitay (but who may know her!). "Preorder your 'XO, M' t-shirts!" reads another "blog" post. It turns out that a lot of celebrity blogs aren't blogs at all, but just a collection of markedly amateurish press releases. But! At the other end of the spectrum, some celebrity blogs are deeply personal, like Al Roker's. He recently wrote a moving eulogy of his mom there! Its gravity is only slightly undermined by the cartoon of Al in a prop plane buzzing around the screen. So what else do famous people do with their personal webjournals? Our Intern Mary applied her analytical tools to the most recent posts on 48 of these sites and came up with some findings.

Click to enlarge.

METHODOLOGY: We started with this list of 66 blogging celebrities, added a few faves, eliminated the Huffington Post bloggers, and excluded presidential contenders, because that shit is bananas. Here's the raw data:

David Beckham - recent soccer game (self promo)

Zach Braff - movies and playlists

Mark Cuban - dancing

No Doubt - recent recordings (self promo)

Moby - indecipherable poetry

Meredith Vieira - getting a mammogram

Fred Durst - indecipherable rant

Barbra Streisand - Rush Limbaugh - PR release

Jeff Bridges - recent casting (honorable mention for rad site design)

John Mayer - OJ Simpson watch

Rosie O'Donnell - "feel alright" video

Margaret Cho - Rosie O'Donnell

Dave Barry - Fun pets

Jamie Oliver - pubs

William Shatner - ShatnerVision

Alyssa Milano - Upcoming gigs

Dave Navarro - The fastest Asian-American in the world

Julia Sweeney -long-winded narrative of regular events

Donald Trump - purely self promo

Tom Green - video: hiding in a suitcase

Kevin Smith - long-winded narrative of regular events

Mariska Hargitay - purely self promo

David Byrne - sexual selection and creativity

Curt Schilling - purely self promo

Anna Kournikova - purely self promo

Roseanne - Karen Finley (awesome)

Kanye West - the "illest" shoe award

Billy Morrison - the Bahamas

Jason Mraz - whining about jetlag

Kathy Griffin - Catholic Chuch

MC Hammer - "Look University"

Pamela Anderson - purely self promo

Al Roker - eulogy to mother

Brian Williams - purely self promo (N.B.: Usually not self promo, actually quite good, we just caught him on an off moment)

The Dixie Chicks - purely self promo

Anderson Cooper - the GOP (written by minion)

Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen - purely self promo

Victoria Beckham - purely self promo

Bare Naked Ladies - photo of a ship

Deepak Chopra - genetics

Michael Moore - purely self promo

Tommy Lasorda - baseball

David Duchovny - purely self promo

Jackie Chan - purely self promo

Kirstie Alley - weight loss

Neil Gaiman - writing

Ru Paul - "THIS SHIT IS BANANAS!" (bonus points: old school blogger!)

Mark Hoppus - purely self promo

TMZ v. Perez Hilton: Which Should You Be Reading?

Emily Gould — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 10:44:04 EDT

There are many important factors to take into account when deciding which trash gossip blog best suits your needs. Like: how many times per day would you like to hear about Amy Winehouse? Rosie and the Gays? "Icky icky poo" Bob Barker? How do you feel about the word "shiteous?" Intern Mary has made one of her signature charts, tallying 50 consecutive posts on Friday from both Harvey Levin's AOL/Telepictures (Warner Brothers)-owned gossip site and Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr.'s own place on the web. Which queen of new media should you prefer? It's like, are you hungry for Funyuns or those Andy Capp fries?

Click to enlarge.

Going Dutch Is Never Okay, Except When It Is

Emily Gould — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 15:00:52 EDT

Boy, y'all sure had some feelings about whether or not it's ever acceptable for a man and a lady on a date to split the tab! As you recall, my position was "Yes, of course, what century are we living in?" Your positions ranged from "I thinks the man should pay, but only if he is getting some" to "Men should pamper me like the princess I am!" to "I am gay and happier about it because of this post" to "Is this Jezebel?" We recruited Intern Mary to help us discern the misogynist forest from the self-hating trees.

The people have spoken!

What Does Bill O'Reilly Really Say About Black People?

Choire — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 13:41:03 EDT

Fox News motormouth Bill O'Reilly is upset—he says that his recent remarks about those oh-so-well-behaved black people in Harlem were totally taken out of context! So we wondered: Well, what context were they in? Searching through the Fox transcripts, using the terms "Black, "African" and "African-American," and discarding comments about Africa (such as about Darfur or the IMF), Intern Mary itemizes the way in which Bill O'Reilly has talked about black people.

As a bonus, some of our favorite O'Reilly moments:

"Black Americans are understandably sensitive about any racial comment made by a Caucasian because of past history. It is true that the most vile things imaginable can be said about the white majority without any consequence, but America has a different set of rules for different groups." —10/4/05

"With single black women now heading 54.4% of all African-American households, the seeds of social chaos are deeply planted... Forget about counting on parents, that's a pipe dream. The truth is that many parents are addicted to the pipe or the bottle or to pursuing an irresponsible life. Even Bill Cosby can't force a screwed up mother or father to be responsible." —7/8/04

And of course: "Senator Barack Obama seems to be a nice guy; I won't say he's 'articulate,' because some African-Americans hear that word and take offense. In fact, I won't give the Senator any compliments other than the nice guy description, just to be on the safe side." —2/8/07

Who's Advertising In the 'New York Times Book Review'?

Emily Gould — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 14:40:06 EDT

This weekend brought us the first iteration of the smaller, cuter Times book review. Last week we learned that the bestseller lists were being revamped and expanded, at the cost of one editorial page, in an effort to appeal more to advertisers. But who's actually placing ads in those pages?

We'd always thought, based on cursory flips through the Review and a few years of working in publishing, that putting an ad in the Times was mostly something mainstream publishers did in order to appease diva authors. Most of the ads have always seemed to us to be for books on tape and books selfpublished via iUniverse and for Bose speakers. So we had Intern Mary tally up the ads in three consecutive Reviews. And:
We were right.

Which New York Newspaper Has The Most Accurate Weather Forecasts?

abalk — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 11:57:14 EDT

Each morning we wake up, open the front door, grab the newspaper, look at the forecast for the day's high temperature, and dress based on that forecast. (Occasionally we also shower.) And every day, around noon, we find ourselves complaining that we're too hot because the paper was completely wrong. So we asked Intern Mary to track the weekday results of the city's three major papers and the New York Sun against the actual high temperatures over a two-week period. She also looked at the online predictions, for those of you who get your news that way. Her findings may surprise you!

Online
The Daily News was the worst offender here, deviating an average 6.78 degrees from the day's high. The Post and the Times, both of which use AccuWeather for their online predictions, were the closest, with only a two degree deviation. Overall, the online temperature matched the actual high a pathetic 10.25 percent of the time, giving a ninety percent chance that forecasts are off by at least one degree. Special mention goes to the Sun, which was 23 degrees off on Aug 21st and 21 degrees off on Aug 22nd.

Average Variation By Paper
1) Daily News: 6.78 degrees
2) Sun: 6.53 degrees
3) Times and Post 2 degrees

Print
The Post takes the title here, being off an average of almost four degrees from the day's high. The Times is the most accurate, with an average 1.54 degree difference between forecast and reality. Overall, the print temperature matched the actual high only 17.3 percent of the time. So print temperatures are more accurate than online temperatures, but are still wrong more than 80 percent of the time.

Average Variation By Paper
1) Post: 3.77 degrees
2) Daily News: 2.62 degrees
3) Sun: 2.61 degrees
4) Times: 1.54 degrees

What's the lesson here? Watch T.V. NY1's "Weather On The Ones" is usually right, right? But if you can't stand to do that, maybe you actually have to buy a newspaper!

How Many Child Molesters Live Near Your 'Harry Potter' Party?

Choire — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 11:55:23 EDT

Tonight, tens of thousands of happy New York children will stay up past their bedtimes, lining up at bookstores for when the final "Harry Potter" book is released at a minute after midnight. But how safe will they be? Cross-referencing the list of local Harry Potter parties with the sex offender registry, we can reveal that these children will be surrounded by literally dozens of baby rapists and other offenders! Is no place safe? Actually, yes, some place is! We've identified the safest New York-area place to take your child tonight. The answer may surprise you! Barnes & Noble Astor Place, 4 Astor Place, New York, NY 10003.
The East Village is surprisingly kiddie-fiddler light. But the Bowery's still got it going on—don't march your kid down to the Whole Foods else little Ashley or Gingerly get nabbed!

LEGEND: The little white boxes with the x's are just schools, don't be alarmed. The red boxes are where the folks who offend against children live; yellow and white are rapists; blues are for the sexual batterers, and green are "other offenses."

Books of Wonder, 18 West 18th Street New York, New York 10011.
Books of Wonder will feature live owls at their Harry Potter party! It will also feature a statutory-rapist free environment!

Community Book Store, 143 7th Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11215.
As you can see, the Park Slope book store sits in a relatively molester-free oasis. But don't go around that park! Shriek!

Toys "R" Us Times Square Toy Store, 1514 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.
Maybe you should take a cab to Toys 'R' Us, particularly if you're going along 43rd Street. And make sure you tell little Goldman that that big man really isn't Dumbledore.

Borders Book Store, 680 White Plains Road, Scarsdale, New York 10583
And now we know why people move to the suburbs. As long as little Dillinger and Pembroke and Halliburton don't go up to White Plains or down to New Rochelle, they'll have the happiest, most undisturbed childhoods imaginable. Unless Harry Potter dies!

The 'New York Times' And The Cost Of Being A Liberal

Choire — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 12:03:22 EDT

This week, the New York Times increased its weekday paper's newsstand price to $1.25. (Sunday's paper now goes to $4 from $3.50.) The paper's daily price was 25 cents in 1980, 30 cents in 1982, and 35 cents in 1988—by 1999, the price was 75 cents, and then a dollar in 2002. But how have the paper's price increases kept up with the other costs and benefits of being a liberal? Intern Mary, with some crazy science, breaks down the paper's price versus the stock prices of Volvo and Whole Foods, the yearly number of marijuana related arrests, and the rate of inflation.

The iPhone On Craiglist: Sucking And Shopping

Choire — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 17:00:37 EDT

Since June 30, there have been 102 postings on the New York Craigslist personals that mention the iPhone. Ranging from anal sex in exchange for an iPhone (give it to get it) to missed connections at the Genius bar, they make for a stunning display of humanity and its sad vulgar needs. There are poems and something about how Starbucks gave people iPhones but there was urine in the coffee? There are some clearly fake iPhone phone sex requests and apparently someone already dropped theirs down the toilet. There is of course some general douchiness. And so much more. Intern Mary breaks it all down for you in a handy pie graph.