Kneecapped Your Home For Tapir News

Since Kneecapped is the blog authority on all things tapir naturally I'm linking to this story on the front of Boston.com: a very nice tapir story and naming contest. Enjoy.

More Fun With Yahoo News

After un-crossing his fingers Mueller added, "We just chose not to."

It's Hard Being a Seal

So, basically what you're saying is our habitat is fucked, but you will continue hunting us. Thanks, as if being a seal weren't hard enough.

Sarcasm Makes Me Laugh

I stumbled upon a funny blog yesterday, Dear Douchebag, and today's post featured an article about America's Next Top Model advertisements getting stripped from Santa Monica buses. I'm all for Tyra's mug getting ripped off of public surfaces, she's over exposed as it is, but the rep for CW had a great sarcastic quote on the issue:

"It's a jungle out there in bus marketing. Even America's next top models aren't safe anymore," CW spokesman Paul McGuire said.

A jungle it is indeed sir. A jungle it is. That's just a great smart ass remark and I wanted to give the guy credit for it.

Jaw Dropping

Sometimes, when the time is right and the fates smile down upon you, you stumble across the greatest Yahoo! headline ever: Britney Spears Shaves Head.

NEWS FLASH!! New York Smells

A disgusting odor has taken over New York, covering the normally pleasant fragrances of exhaust, urine, stale beer, vomit, and garbage. The City looks to blame New Jersey's silent-but-violent reputation. New Jersey counters by saying, "Whoever smelt it dealt it." I'll be back with more info as this story develops.

You Say Tomato I Say The Housing Market's Fine

I don't know who's spinning what, but these two news wires (Yahoo! on top, Fox News below) took the same data and news story and attached completely opposite headlines to them, Fox being more optimistic. READERS NOTE: Please try and ignore the Penis Cartoon/STD story on the Fox wire.

Yeah, But Shouldn't The Beautiful Young Actress Be, Well, Beautiful?

Maggie Gyllenhaal is not beautiful as evidenced by this photo where she does her best Olsen twin impression. She looks like my great aunt. See the larger picure here.

The Russian Spy Case Just Got a Little Hipper

This link on the Yahoo! wire caught my eye:

Interpol is on the case! Now, I'm no genius but I'm pretty sure Interpol and their brand of New-New Wave melancholy-pop-rock are just the people to bring the sinister powers behind the Russian spy assassination to their knees.

Wow, that didn't take long. Here's Interpol moving in standard two-by-two cover formation. The group walks the beat, taking names, searching for clues, and looking stylish.

Shame, shame, shame. No rest for the weary, boys. There's a killer on the loose.No, sadly the killer is not in Williamsburg. Spread your wings Interpol the world anxiously awaits your findings!"They Caught This Killer with New-New-Wave-Melancholy-Pop Rock n' Roll!"
Writer's block makes you crazy.

Kneecapped’s Lack of (Internet) Knowledge - Fred Wilson Interview

I saw Fred Wilson speak tonight at a New York Magazine "Master Class" event. I had never even heard of Fred Wilson before, which considering that he is a major player in website venture capitalism, and a popular blogger, goes to show you my naiveté in these matters, but I digress.

Fred gave a great interview. He was clear, insightful, and he was able to relay his message to a wide range of audience members with varying degrees of background knowledge. If I understood what he was talking about, surely everyone else did. It's no surprise he recently sold his home for a ridiculous sum of money, he’s a bright fellow.

I'd recommend hearing him speak if you get the chance, or just check out his blog like I will be doing from now on. The interview will also be available on Columbia Business School's website in the near future.

Jury Appreci-fucking-ation Day

We live in a great country with an amazing legal system. Our founding beliefs that everyone is created equal goes hand in hand with a legal system that grants you the right to a fair trial in front of a jury of your peers. Jurors are a cross section of our nation’s economic, ethnic, and religious groups. Each juror’s opinion matters and has influence on the system. When you finish a case the judge thanks you for performing your civic duty, and you go home fulfilled. No juror is more important than the next.

Ha ha, fooled you! If that were at all true then we wouldn't have JURY APPRECIATION DAY!!! (page 4) What is this disgusting display of glad-handing and celebrity worship known as Jury Appreciation Day you ask? It’s the Justice Department's turn to hang with celebs and bask in their glow. It's the Justice Department's chance to give praise to the celebrities that didn’t use their P.R. rep or lawyers to get them out of jury duty that year. And it’s the Justice Department's opportunity to finally give these celebs the proper "thank you" they deserve for giving their valuable and famous time to the belittling, un-hip, and peasant-like service of jury duty.

Fuck you all.

I’m still waiting for my invitation to the Jury Appreciation Day gala. Yes, I was on jury duty this year. You may have read about my trial, as it made the cover of the NY Post. That’s what happens when defendants stab their lawyer in the neck and make a break for the bailiff’s gun, stabbing him as well, all this about 20 feet away from the jury. Yeah, that shit makes the cover of the Post.

The whole jury was shaken (well not me). One woman had a borderline nervous breakdown and could barely make it back into court for it to be declared a mistrial. This was three days after the escape attempt and she was still bawling. The woman was basically traumatized, but I bet she didn’t get the chance to hang with Bobby D and Regis yesterday.

Maybe they should have Bailiff Appreciation Day? For the brave bailiff who held off the prisoner despite being stabbed and injuring his knee but did not surrender his gun.

Or how about a Whoever's Job It Is To Frisk Prisoners Before They Go Into Court Appreciation Day, so they’ll have a little added motivation to do their fucking jobs.

But this won’t happen because none of these people were in Taxi Driver and none of them host a dopey daytime talk show.

Jury Appreciation Day needs to stop. Tax money probably pays for the fucking thing, why is this necessary? Am I going to take jury duty more seriously because Paula Fucking Zahn’s ass is kissed for doing so?

Burn Rubber Not Statues

According to the sublime Gothamist Maps, a man threatened to burn the Statue of Liberty this morning. Not sure exactly how you “burn” a giant copper statue, the melting point of copper is 1984.32 °F. Maybe he thinks he’s a glass of orange juice after dropping the brown acid at Burning Man?

Oh Fair UMass

See, I wasn’t kidding when I mentioned (fourth item) my college’s reputation. A degree from UMass doesn't mean what it used, that was the message sent from high above Massachusetts government. Now, it looks to be the end of an era of raging alcohol abuse on the Amherst campus. And it couldn't have happened at a better time, with me a good six years removed from that little town in western Mass, with an student to asshole cop ratio of about 100/1 (Amherst cops are bigger dicks than your average state trooper. I'm a law abiding citizen but my opinion of them will never change.)

I, personally, think a UMass degree trains you for the real New York lifestyle i.e. drinking in excess and staying out late, but then getting up in the morning and making it to work. If you managed to scratch and claw your way out of UMass in fours years, find a job, and move on with your life, that my friend is an accomplishment that can never be measured by a piece of paper.

Does the "S" Stand for Sycophantic?

That slurping sound you heard yesterday at about 3:30PM was ESPN licking their chops with the prospect of pounding the Cory Lidle story into your brains. ESPN gets to show their “sensitive” and “hard news” sides. On Mike & Mike in the morning, they pay their lip service to the tragedy, “Today sports takes a back seat to tragedy, blah blah blah, This really puts sports in perspective blah blah blah, our thoughts and prayers are with his friends and family blah blah blah, now on to the playoffs.” I just love getting my life's perspective from ESPN.

On ESPN.com, Jermey Shapp whines his way through the story making sure to use as much gravitas as possible so we can understand the life changing seriousness of this accident. He even explains that Lidle's family has had to stay way from their home because "the media was staking it out." The damn media eh, Jeremy? I'm sure ESPN or ABC don't have a microwave truck idling in Lidle's driveway as we speak.

Stop EVERYTHING! Paris and Nicole Seen Together.

I found this hot off the Yahoo!(one of the most trafficked sites on the web, beacon of information) news wire. Check out the last item, "Hilton, Richie Seen Together at L.A. Steakhouse." Digest this information, take a few minutes, then get back to whatever it was you were doing. That is, if you can. Who'd have thought North Korea would be trumped on its first day as a nuclear power by this startling news? Wowzer. Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton together, at a steakhouse no less.

Unfortunately, I had "whore" and "crack" in the "What Kind of House Will Nicole and Paris Be Seen Together At First?" office pool. Oh well, can't win 'em all. Congrats, Jodi!

Quotes That Make You Want To Slit Your Wrists

This quote from foxnews.com made me gag and contemplate taking my own life:

“Space travel is sexy,” said Star magazine editor at large Jill Dobson. “If you think rock stars get the chicks, wait 'til Dave Navarro returns from space and then see how popular he is with the ladies.”

There you have it. What millions of Star Wars and Star Trek fans have known for years has finally hit Hollywood. Space travel is sexy. Forget science, the awe of human technology, or the sheer beauty of seeing Earth from space, because traveling to space will get you laid.

Who better to travel to space than reality TV douchebags like Dave Navarro and Paris Hilton? With recent space travel disasters still fresh on the brain, and crippling the taxpayer funded NASA, perhaps it's time for a few accidents from the private sector. Well, as long as the disasters avoid the Stephen Hawkings of the world, and hit those b-list attention whores who happened to stumble upon a few million dollars in their vapid existence. I can think of no better way to rid ourselves of the Paris Hilton scourge than her being vaporized in the upper atmosphere.

It all reminds me of the Y2K chapter of “Treehouse of Horror X” episode of The Simpsons in which a rocketship pakced with b-list celebrities like Pauley Shore and Dan Qualye is launched towards the sun. I wanted to find this video for you but failed. If you have one, please email me or throw it up on youtube and I’ll post it here and credit you. But here, at least is the Y2K meltdown:

Beep Baseball = Amazing

Check out this video story that appeared on ESPN.com today. This is great.

Perk This! (Holds Crotch of Pants)

For some reason this really annoyed me today:


The fact that it's a featured article on Yahoo!, the most visited site on the internet, is beyond belief. Well until you cut through the bullshit and realize it's really just a way to drive traffic to Flickr, and sell cheesy goods to us poor ass cubicle slobs who need troll dolls and paper ribbons to brighten our horrible and mundane working conditions.

For example, the Babble Voice Privacy Machine. If you work in a cubicle should you be dropping $395 on a Babble Voice Privacy Machine? First off, it probably doesn’t work. Second, I usually don't by things that expensive for my apartment and I care about that, screw my cubicle. If you can't stand your co-workers talking then quit. What are you holding on to? And with the $395 you save by not buying this useless device that, I’m no doctor or anything, probably gives you cancer, plenty of time time to find a new job. Probably about a day.

Then there's this needless and wasteful invention

Fuck you Ambient Weather Beacon, fuck you. I don't need to be reminded of how great the weather is that I'm missing while sitting in my fucking cubicle. Why don't they come out with an audio device that plays a live stream of obscenely rich heiresses parting on a yacht in the Mediterranean? That would really knock the point that your life sucks right out of the ballpark.

Bud Collins is a Crazy Nut - A Tennis Story

Bud Collins is a nut. A brilliant writer, a great promoter of tennis, but he is loony. From the outfits to the bizarre columns and obscure references over the years, Bud is a must read during any grand slam tournament. This year, in his first US Open column of the season he does not disappoint. Here’s a line from his latest column praising Billie Jean King and the re-naming of the US Tennis Association National Tennis Center in her honor (and rightfully so):

“The plot, since breaking new ground for the game in 1978, was called the US Tennis Association National Tennis Center. Goodbye to that bland name, and welcome to BJ's ballpark.”

“BJ’s Ballpark” is probably not a nickname best suited for one of the leading feminist and gay right activists of our time. Naturally, Bud is oblivious to this. Or maybe he isn't, and if so, more power to him.

Billie Jean spoke at my College Graduation and gave a distracted speech (the giant inflatable penis, rampant drug and alcohol use, and constant screaming probably contributed. Got to love state universities) but it was entertaining as I vaguely remember. She even hit a few tennis balls into the crowd. It was only after watching her documentary on HBO that I truly realized how important she was. So good job Billie Jean and good job Bud Collins, you both help keep tennis interesting.

Boring Columnist Lectures Commuters

Thanks to Open Eyed Sneeze for the kind comments on my last post. I was thinking about that beer pong post before I went to bed last night, wondering how most people who read it probably think I’m a recent college grad killing time before I start my real job, sewing my royal oats if you will. No, that’s not the case. I’m 28, have a job, an apartment, a wife even. Is it sad that I’ll still play a game of beer pong on special occasions? Definitely not.

Then I read today’s Metro and it made me reassess my life choices, mainly drinking alcohol. Then after about 2 seconds of assessment I said, "screw it, why stop now." I’m glad the author is so comfortable in her own skin, I just hope she doesn’t push for prohibition because these days all it takes is one whiney bitch to ruin it for the rest of us (i.e. Bloomberg, Smoking).

For example, the Milwaukee Brewers mascot, Bernie the Brewer, can’t even slide into a beer mug after a Brewers’ home run. Check the before and after photos on the left and note the lack of a beer mug in the second photo. They’re the fucking Brewers for Christsake!

This overly sensitive bullshit is slowly strangling the joy out of living in this county. Maybe Felice Cohen would be happy if we were all lobotomized walking corpses smiling our way through our insignificant lives. Maybe I would like to have a beer. I'm sick of everyone sanitizing every-tiny-little-thing-we-do-so-we-don't-hurt-any-ones-feelings-and-won't-someone-please-think-of-the-children-I-don't-like-it-so-you-shouldn't-be-allowed-to-do-it-either thing out there. I didn't move to the suburbs for a reason. It's nonsense. Idiocy. Totalitarian.

And not to nitpick, but there aren’t any doctors, drunk or sober, to find a cure for Parkinson’s. That's just a stupid comparison.