Invincible "Access Entertainment Extra! Hollywood Tonight" Summer

So I know I haven't written in a while. If you know me, you know there has been good reason why I haven't felt like being particularly witty or flippant. Maybe I'll write about it someday, but not right now.

Instead I'd like to share with you what has absolutely made my day today:

The Emmy nominees for "Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics are:

"My Drunken Irish Dad" from Family Guy

"Merry Ex-mas" from MadTV (Clearly the most boring title here.)

"Dick in a Box" from SNL (Read: Emmy. Nominee. Dick. in. a. Box. Could a single phrase get any better?)

"Everything Comes Down to Poo" from Scrubs

"Guy Love" from Scrubs

I really hope it's like the Oscars where each nominee gets to perform their song during the awards show. That would be the only good reason to watch this 5-hour-long bore-fest.

Oh, who am I kidding? I'm an entertainment whore. I'll be watching anyway.


In other Emmy news, two choreographers from "So You Think You Can Dance" (Wade Robson and Mia Michaels) were nominated for dances they choreographed during last season! I think that is so big for the dance world. It is pretty rare when choreographers get celebrated for this type of work. These aren't music video, broadway or Justin Timberlake concert backup dances. They are artistic pieces of contemporary and jazz dance; genres that the general public would never get to see if it weren't for the show and these amazing choreographers. Plus Mia and Wade are my favorites! Congrats to them.

More Deep Thoughts

This time from Michael "I know the crap out of women!" Scott:

Any man who says he totally understands women is a fool. ‘Cause they are un-understandable. There’s a wishing fountain at the mall. And I threw a coin in for every woman in the world and made a wish. I wished for Jan to get over me, I wished for Phyllis a plasma TV, I wished for Pam to gain courage, I wished for Angela a heart, and for Kelly a brain. “Michael, how can you appreciate women so much, but also dump one of them?” You mean, how can I be so illogical and flighty and unpredictable and emotional? Well maybe I learned something from women after all.

My "Deep Thought" for Today

I was at The Onion website today poking around in their fake news articles (seriously, who needs real news?) when I happened upon their gift shop. There I found myself the (almost) perfect coffee mug:


However, if I could change one thing about the mug (which would make it actually perfect) it would be that instead of saying "The Onion" on the other side, it would say:

For more "Deep Thoughts" by Jack Handey go to The Only Official Deep Thoughts Site.

GOULET!!

Those brilliant bloggers at BWE.tv point us to the most awesomest viral site yet - www.gouletbars.com.

The best compilation of Robert Goulet songs since the Coconut Banger's Ball: It's a Rap! (Kind of inside, I know.)

Proof that Sexy First Came Back in 2001 and Justin Had Nothing to Do With It

Justin in 2001:

Not sexy.

Christopher Walken in 2001:

Case closed.

Is it hot in the office or is it just Jim?

Here's another Office fan video. It doesn't quite hold the same place in my heart as when Michael and Dwight brough SexyBack but its still really funny with incredible editing. My favorite parts - "I think my butt gettin big!" and Pam's "what?...oh".




Good thing there's something to keep me offipied while The Office is on hiatus forEVER.
Also, if you're a fan, you should know NBC is showing "newpeats" this Thursday. They are special extended episodes of "The Merger" and "Traveling Salesmen" that have been re-edited to include material originally cut from the eps' first run.

Other fun Office stuff to get you through the dry spell:

Play NBC's Office Quote Game (harder than you'd think)
Watch Rainn Wilson's Office Themed Monologue on SNL
Read Jenna Fischer (aka Pam)'s MySpace Blog
Write in The Life in the Office Forum

Celebracion "El Labirinto del Fauno"

Tengo aconseje para usted: Mire Pan's Labyrinth.

It may not be a happy movie; it may be dark, startling brutal at times and intense, but it is worth living through. Just make sure you have the time to process it once it's over. This isn't a movie you leave behind right away. At least I didn't. For me, this movie was like director Guillermo del Toro was giving me a small dose of what it must have felt like for the people of Spain during Franco's rule and the Spanish Civil War. There is never a moment of security for the characters or the audience. Even in the fantasy world of 11-year-old Ofelia, there is a darkness and intensity that never settles or comforts. It is a movie that is both frightening and beautiful in only the way a fairy-tale is able.

For a more thorough review that I couldn't have said better myself see Roger Ebert's page.

I also have to say that young Ivana Baquero who plays Ofelia should have been nominated for an Oscar. I think if this movie were from the U.S. she would have been. I loved Abigail Breslin in Little Miss Sunshine and believe she deserved the nom she recieved, but because of the type of movie Pan's was, Baquero's performance needed to be, and was, on a whole other level. For instance, take note of the scene of Ofelia, ear pressed against her mother's pregnant belly, making a heart-wrenching promise to her unborn baby brother. Half the adult actresses who make their living in Hollywood could not find and portray the emotional truth in this scene as well as her.

¡Excelente!



The image of the Pan's Labyrinth poster was taken from Wikipedia where you can find its copywrite information. No infringement intended.

PostSecret - Stamps + Chocolate

The marketing geniuses behind Altoids (just try to tell me their Curiously Strong campaign isn't effective, I dare you) have come up with a slightly viral, very interactive online campaign to promote their new Chocolate Altoids. Really, the word chocolate sold me right off, but apparently others aren't so easily swayed.

The concept is a la PostSecret. Annonymous people write short notes (up to 50 characters) that, once approved by the moderator, are added to the (chocolate) pool of other people's thoughts, shout-outs, secrets, put-downs, confessions, etc. The gimmick is that each thought becomes a white mint Altoid floating in a chocolate pool and anyone accessing the site can click on your thought and see what you wrote. You also have the option of approving your thought to be used by Altoids in the banner ads they are placing on other sites:


Therefore, anyone can be a copywriter! I bet that feels good to all you other ad students out there who paid $45,000 a year on a degree and countless hours on a portfolio only to be shot down time and again by the big ad agencies. Look! They don't even need you! They can pay joe-schmo $0 to write their ads AND get them to want to eat chocolate Altoids at the same time! Brilliant.

Good thing I want to be an art director.

Here's my special message to all of you:


If that doesn't put you in the mood for something chocolate dipped, I don't know what will.

Addendum to Previous Post

Last night Janet and I went to see a pre-screening of the new Jim Carrey movie The Number 23, thanks to passes I received for being a Bzz Agent. Mostly the movie was entertaining, suspenseful and creepy, but I don't really buy into the number 23 being very significant. I think you can probably reduce significant dates and names to most any number so that it will meet your expectations (i.e. Magical Thinking).

However, I will confess that on the bus ride home (it's that damn bus again, lulling my dominant reality-based brain hemisphere and freeing up my fantasy-oriented side) I started thinking about the strange date I encountered earlier that day - February 21, 2026. I realized you can reduce February 21 to 2/21 or 2 + 21, which of course equals 23. Ok, so not really that exciting. But, 20 + 26 = 46, which cut in half is...........yup, 23. Kinda spooky. Then take all the numbers in the date - 2, 21, 20, 26 and add them up. It equals 69, which divided by 3 is 23. Then I was weirded out and stopped because I had to get off the bus and walk home in the dark.

Maybe it's a stretch, and like I said it's probable you could do this with any number, but it's still something interesting to think about. Just don't get obsessed. It's not pretty.

Time Travel is Way Cooler in a DeLorean

This morning on the bus, the electric banner that scrolls the time and date for the passengers read February 21, 2026. For a minute I thought I might have woken up on the wrong side of the Twilight Zone. Then I realized my bus wasn't flying and my iPod was still a separate entity from my body, so I figured some drunken MBTA worker must have programed the bus this morning. That made me feel a whole lot better.

To get my mind off of drunken bus operators, I was pondering what the year 2026 might be like. I will be 44, which is the worst thing I've ever heard. And that's about all I can really say about the 2-6er (what I think we should call the years by then). So, I decided that if there's anything out there that I think could look into the future 19 years and bring me back a glimpse of the world it would have to be Google. Surely the omnipotent master of the cyber-universe would find me the answers.

Turns out Google is just the pimp and Wikipedia is its bitch. The first page on my Google search was for the Wiki, which already has a page solely for the year 2026. Talk about being on top of your shit. Here's what it tells us about the future (insert Wayne's World sound effects and motions here).

In the year 2026:

• New Year's Day will be on a Thursday. Yesssss! Thursdays rock!
• The Aurora Programme will send a mission to Mars. Really? Mars? That's original. Won't we be living on Mars by then? That's not going to be a very exciting mission.
• The U.S. will celebrate its 250th anniversary as an independent country. Par-tay!! Maybe by then we can clone the fore-fathers and get our groove on. I call dibbsies on John Adams!
• The southern section of the BART will connect the East Bay of California to Silicon Valley. It will make it a much easier commute for the AIs to come kill off the humans every morning. They will be very appreciative and might spare people who look like Will Smith or Tom Cruise.
• According to the TV section of 2026, if we were in an episode of SeaQuest DSV this would happen - "An economic summit takes place that places hundreds of thousands of undeveloped basins back on the market." I have no idea what the means, but if I can have a talking dolphin, I don't really care either.
• And according to Star Trek: Enterprise, World War III will begin in 2026. A date they must have gotten from Ms. Cleo, since all signs point to that shit storm starting much earlier.

Lastly, my favorite event of 2026 will be the actualization of Heinz von Foerster's "Doomsday Equation". In 1960, Foerster published an article in which he divulged a formula for future population growth. "The formula gave 2.7 billion as the 1960 world population and predicted that population growth would become infinite by Friday, November 13, 2026. " Happy Birthday to me! Awww, the end of the world! You shouldn't have!

So in pre-celebration of the apocalypse and my 45th birthday, which I will be spending on Mars with my talking pet dolphin Darwin, an AI ass-kicking Will Smith and my John Adams clone, here is a video of how I think the world will actually end. Enjoy.

The Most Hate-Filled, Disrespectful, Ignorant Thing I Have Heard in a Long Time

Below is the rotten shit that poured forth from former Miami Heat point guard Tim Hardaway's mouth during a recent radio show interview. The hosts were discussing the coming-out of former NBA player John Amaechi and the release of his autobiography.

"You know, I hate gay people, so I let it be known. I don't like gay people and I don't like to be around gay people," Hardaway said while a guest on Sports Talk 790 The Ticket in Miami. "I'm homophobic. I don't like it. It shouldn't be in the world or in the United States."

The host asked Hardaway how he would interact with a gay teammate.

"First of all, I wouldn't want him on my team. And second of all, if he was on my team, I would, you know, really distance myself from him because, uh, I don't think that is right. I don't think he should be in the locker room while we are in the locker room."

If he did find out that a teammate was gay, Hardaway said he would ask for the player to be removed from the team.

"Something has to give," Hardaway said. "If you have 12 other ballplayers in your locker room that's upset and can't concentrate and always worried about him in the locker room or on the court or whatever, it's going to be hard for your teammates to win and accept him as a teammate." SI.com

And here is his "apology" regarding the incident:

"Yes, I regret it. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said I hate gay people or anything like that," he said. "That was my mistake."

The NBA also issued a statement where they duly noted the "disparity between his views and ours."

Way to really put your foot down and take a strong stance on the issue NBA. You don't necessarily condone homophobia, but hell, you're not about to condemn it either! You wouldn't want to alienate your target audience now would you?

Well NBA, here's an exercise for you: read the same quote and every time you see the words "gay" or "homophobic" replace them with "black" and "racist". I'll give you a minute......

Sounds like we're back in the 40s or 50s doesn't it? Can you imagine the public outrage and strong dissenting statement the NBA would have issued if THAT were to come out of someones mouth on a radio show interview today? And rightly so. It is offensive and racist. Well, so is the real version.

It is a disconcerting and horrifying reminder of the lengths this country still needs to go in the "all men created equal" department. You would think that 231 years would be enough to get it right, but we are obviously so far off from that it is ridiculous.

So, in this month to celebrate black history and the strides society has taken in the fight for equal rights, let's not forget how far we still need to go, for the sake of all people.

Like Endless Rain Into a Paper Cup

I haven't been inspired to post anything in a while, and I've also been busy, but I thought I'd share the trailer to a movie that I'm pretty excited about. It's called Across the Universe and is a fictional romp through the turmoil of the 60s. The plot follows a young couple (Jude and Lucy) and uses visual art and dance numbers cued to new arrangements of Beatles songs in order to capture the frenzy and passion of that era. The only way I can describe what this movie looks like to me is alive. I hope the storyline will live up to the stunning visual glances this preview is giving us:




Credit to bestweekever.tv for posting this.

I couldn't make this up if I tried

This morning I opened up my email inbox to find an email titled: "Invitation to Join MLB Bloggers." My first thought was, "Hey cool, a blogging group might be fun!" Then I read the email and laughed more than I thought humanly possible at 9am on a cold, snowy work day.

Dear blog author:

We recently came across your site, invinciblesummer13.blogspot.com, while searching for bloggers who blog about Major League Baseball.

That's really all you need to read. If you know me, you are already laughing. If you don't know me, please refer to the ONLY post I've ever written that has to do with baseball: a man in uniform.

Now, if you're not into sports as much as I clearly am, you may not realize that the picture I linked to in that post is not even a real baseball player! True story. It's actually David Duchovny in an episode of The X-Files (*sigh, baseball spooning*). And if you didn't know that, we can't be friends.

So, in conclusion, a note to Craig Cantin at MLB Bloggers:

I wish you all the luck with your blogging group and I am quite flattered by the (obviously) personally tailored invitation I received. However, it is with deep regret that I must decline your offer. I just don't see us as a very good match at this time, unless you want me to blog about hot guys who have worn baseball uniforms but aren't in fact baseball players. If that's the case, sign me up!

Otherwise, thank you in the very least for the good laugh.

Your friend in baseball (sort of),

Allison

Michael Scott and the Paper Factory

Oompa loompa doopidy dawsome
Tonight's episode of The Office was awesome
If you do not like this show
I cannot be your friend no mo.

(Also, you are not in on this joke. Sad for you.)

Stop, Hey What's That Sound?

I hope you enjoy the newest feature on my blog. It's no iPhone, but this ain't Apple.com either.

This 'Ship Should Sail.....Far Away.....Don't Ever Come Back.....Seriously.

Somehow (not really sure how) I just came across a shipper video on YouTube that focuses on the characters of Hermione Granger and Professor Snape from the Harry Potter books/films.

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

Ew! That is just gross and disturbing to think about. Also, it is illegal. Ick ick ick.

The worst part (yes, it gets worse) is that there are actually more of the same out there! Come on! How many people can there be that think a fictitious (let's also keep that in mind) 13 year old should have a relationship with a (also fictitious) disturbingly dark, spiteful old guy?! Apparently too many.

If you happen to be masochistic, here's a link to the video. And don't forget to check out the similar ones in the side bar. Yippee! I couldn't even watch the whole thing it creeped me out so much.

Let this be a lesson: Just because you know how to use iMovie, doesn't mean you should.

The smartest thing a man has said about women since.......ever.

"Females are generally not encouraged by society to be super-smart, at least, not overtly. And ESPECIALLY not in the techie/geeky super-smart way.

So as a result, by the time these super-smart young girl geeks have grown up to be women, society will have managed to inject them with all sorts of serious self-esteem issues. Which rarely comes in handy in the mate-choosing department."

Ingenious theory written by hugh macleod on his blog.

The low self-esteem part of me wants to put some sort of disclaimer here that by posting this on my blog I am not implying that I'm one of those super-smart girls. But fuck it, you're damn right I am! And I will now constantly fall back on that explanation for why I can't get a date. You other super-smart women out there, feel free to do so as well.

No no, don't thank me. Thank hugh.

A Giant Step Backward for Woman-Kind

And her name is Ms. Dewey.

She is the new interactive search engine from Microsoft that is part of their new Windows Live online service that is trying to compete with Google. She looks like Jessica Alba and acts like Dwight Schrute. So basically she is hot and FUCKING ANNOYING!

When you type something into her search box (I'm brewing a really dirty joke about this right now), she makes comments about the thing you're searching about. Honestly, it is pretty interesting and amazing. For like 5 minutes. Then you start to wonder what else this sleek interface is supposed to do. When you stop searching for stuff she starts to get impatient and will either tap on your monitor screen or start acting like a whore trying to entice you into using her (once again, another dirty joke in the making).

She's the hot librarian you'll never, ever have. And if you did get her, you'd only like her for a day because eventually you'd realize how annoying she is.

The only step-forward this program is making is in its technology. The searching is basically the same, but the interface has got bells, whistles and a bitchy chick with a low cut top. Thank you again computer nerds for:

1) making all your dreams come true, and

2) giving Ms. Dewey the feature that men wish every woman came with and one that I'm just happy this one specifically comes with: a Mute button.

Something Old, Something New

Two wonderful things I just had to share.

1. The hilarious new t-shirt I got from Kelly for Christmas:

2. I have achieved one of my goals for the year just in the nick of time. I can finally fit back into my senior year May Days dress!! It took a little more effort to get the zipper up than before, but it got there. Now I just need somewhere to wear it.

Hello, Dolly

The FDA recently made the decision that food products which come from cloned animals do not need special labels at the supermarket. They say there is no difference at all between the original cow/sheep/pig than its clone, and there are no health risks associated with eating these animals. You can read the whole CNN article here.

I'm not exactly sure how I feel about this. My first reaction is to be creeped out. It has been over 10 years since Dolly the sheep showed up in the news, and that is a lot of time for cloning technologies to evolve and become more widespread. However, to me it still sounds like
something from a sci-fi movie, and a horrible made-for-tv one by the Sci-Fi channel at that. I don't understand the science behind it and therefore I fear it and its possibilities.

I also wonder about the safety of eating so much food that comes from a science lab. And I'm not just talking clones here. Almost all of our meats are genetically altered in some way - to make the cows produce more milk, pigs be meatier and chickens create more and larger eggs. None of this food is labeled either. Your bacon does not have a warning on it that says - "From a genetically enhanced pig." and your milk doesn't say "Now with more bovine growth hormones!". So I guess if that is the standard they've set, why would they start with labeling cloned food?

Cloned. Food. Just let that sink in. If the idea of eating an exact genetic copy of another animal made by scientists in a test tube does not creep you out even a little bit and make you seriously consider being a vegetarian, then you should just sign up for Fear Factor right now, because you would win.

I have never tried to be a vegetarian before. I know those little piggies and moo moos are cute, and I have heard the many horror stories about how they are raised, but I have decided that 1) I am not selfish about much in my life, so I can have a clear conscious about being selfish about my place on the food chain (and anyone with a problem with it can choke on a big fat carrot stick); and 2) those animals are mighty tasty! Mmmm boy!

I am, however, getting increasingly concerned about the safety of many foods (even fruits and vegetables with all their pesticidal goodness), and see that even being a vegetarian may not even be the way to solve this problem. The only hope is that someday soon my financial situation will allow me to buy all organics, and that eventually they will be affordable for everyone.

Until then I guess it's going to be:

Hello, Dolly
Well hello, Dolly
It's so nice to have you back where you belong
You're lookin' swell, Dolly
We can tell, Dolly
You're still glowin', you'rs still crowin'
You're still goin' strong.


Picture of Dolly taken from Wikipedia, click on the image to see full credits.