Wednesday, November 24, 2010

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

  • Good news for all of you who like bad news: North Korea is saying that South Korea's actions are driving the peninsula to the "brink of war."NK is like that boyfriend that says his girlfriend made him hit her. Obama vowed to defend South Korea if North Korea tries anything more. This has potential to be so fucking shitty for everyone.
  • An Indonesian cleric has been jailed for marrying a 12 year old girl. He said he was gonna wait til she hit puberty before banging his bride ... I'm not sure why he couldn't just wait until puberty to marry her. On top of that, he also stated that he was planning on marrying two other girls, aged 7 and 9 (Muslims are allowed up to 4 wives in Indonesia). In case you were wondering, the childbride was delivered back to her parents by cops immediately following the wedding -- not sure why they weren't arrested as well.
  • Speaking of child molesting priests, a priest who was accused of molesting a kid managed to prove that he's a super scumbag by hiring a undercover agent as a hitman to kill the kid he molested. Way to be Holy, asshole.
  • The 29 miners that were trapped in the New Zealand mine are presumed dead following a second explosion. Why are mines suddenly in the news so much? Have they been this disastrous in the past, or is this a new phenom?
  • San Francisco is filled with geniuses: they're regulating their Happy Meals. Now, in order for a McDonalds in SF to offer happy meals with toys, they have to meet certain dietary standards. There's hopes that this will help fight childhood obesity and that other cities will follow suit.
  • Fans have been lined up at a Barnes & Nobel in Phoenix since 1am for a Sarah Palin book signing. Mark my words: She is going to run for President in 2012, and she is going to win. Do I want her to? No. But she will. She's doing everything right. She knows that popularity wins and she's working on spinning every aspect of her life to make her popular.
  • It looks like things like the interwebs is making insider trading more and more gray.
  • Facebook just won the trademark on the word FACE. Face. FACE!?
  • SpaceX, the first commercial-based company has been granted permission to have their spacecraft return to earth after leaving it.
  • This Sunday "60 Minutes" will be taking an inside look on the new Spiderman musical that Bono wrote. It's the most expensive musical ever and it just so happens to have one of my best friends in it! Mazel Tov, Mat Devine!!!
  • Cookie Monster wants to be on SNL. This isn't newsworthy, but I figured that it's a light hearted thing that can be used to change the topic when things get heavy or heated during Thanksgiving dinner.
  • Kuwait is looking to ban the use of digital cameras in public by anyone who isn't an accredited journalist.
  • In Israel you are required to do about 2 years in the army, no matter what. I've found that this has toughened up a lot of Israeli's that I know and given them a "no bullshit" attitude that can sometimes be seen as abrasive. Obviously, some Israeli citizens have no interest in being in the army -- especially with things being so tense. But, being the industrious people that they are, the Israeli government is now using Facebook to track down draft dodgers. Way to go, Facebook, way to go.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

DEDICATION


This guy likes Joy Division more than I do... at least I hope he does.

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

We are so fucked.
  • North Korea struck South Korea overnight. The North claims the South struck first, the South claims otherwise... and basically EVERY SINGLE SUPER POWER NATION IS REALLY FUCKING SCARED (a history of the conflict between North and South is here). People are scared that if the North and South start fighting, it will cause each region's ally to step in and do what ally's do: join in. North Korea's (basically only) ally is China. South Korea's ally is the United States. China and the USA are already comparing dick sizes, and neither country really wants to pull their balls out. Everyone is basically saying that that North is acting like a bunch of assholes. Russia sees this as a "colossal danger" and Obama is "outraged."And the French are like "zoot alors!" and have already surrendered.
    From CNBC: Asked about the North's motives, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said: "I don't know. This is an extremely unpredictable government in Pyongyang and they do things that you could not possibly have predicted in a rational world."

    Meanwhile:

    North Korea threatened to continue "merciless" strikes on South Korea on Tuesday after the communist state launched a deadly artillery attack across their western sea border.

  • Speaking of China, looks like they're the leading cause of Greenhouse Gas emissions. Way to go, dudes.
  • The death toll for the Cambodian stampede has raised to 345. The stampede occurred at a Water Festival -- a yearly celebration of a military victory which includes boat races and prayer for rain -- and has been considered one of the biggest tragedies to hit the country. A reporter claims that panic struck when a suspension bridge started to say and police started shooting water cannons at a bridge in an effort to get people to move in a certain direction.
  • SOME GOOD NEWS!: The UN stated that the world AIDS crisis is starting to slow down! And not only that, but there appears to be a daily pill dosage that helps gay men not catch HIV! It's still undetermined how it will work with heterosexuals, but it's proven to work nicely for the gays! Horay!
  • Unfortunately, we're trading one preventable disease for another: looks like half of Americans will have diabetes by 2020. Stay away from high fructose corn syrup, people.
  • More TSA bullshit ... it might extend to trains and subways. Meanwhile, people are raising concern about the TSA spreading diseases because they're not changing their latex gloves before each crotch gram. The terrorists have won.

Monday, November 22, 2010

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

Thursday, November 18, 2010

MAKE YOUR OWN JESUS TOAST

He doesn't look a thing like Jesus... oh wait, maybe Brandon Flowers does...

Samsung and OKGo partnered up for this web thing... episodes and a fun app that lets you make your own "Jesus Toast" ... do it.

link via (@gurj)


KATY PERRY'S BOOBS

are awesome.

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

  • The Chinese have built that world's top supercomputer. The computer is called the Tianhe-1A, and it knocked the American supercomputer, Jaguar, to second place. In third place is another Chinese supercomputer. To give some prospective on how fast these technologies move, three years ago, a US supercomputer was ranked at #1 and today it's #12. This is important because on top of China becoming an economic superpower in the coming years, becoming a technological superpower will help up their abilities to develop things like war strategies and other methods of control. People are saying not to worry about this... yet. However, we're talking about the same government that just sentenced a woman to a year in a labor camp for Tweeting: "Charge, angry youth." And now, it looks like China has found a way to re-route a significant amount of U.S. internet traffic. According to a report:
    The rerouting happened on April 8 and lasted for about 18 minutes. The traffic hijacking affected U.S. government and military networks, including those belonging to the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, as well as the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Department of Commerce, NASA and the U.S. Senate. Commercial sites, including those belonging to Microsoft, Dell and Yahoo, were also affected.
  • So yeah... American computer nerds, get on it.

  • Yesterday it was in the news that Germany was upping their security due to terrorist threats, and it looks like a bomb was intercepted on it's way to Munich. The terrorists have it all wrong -- your enemy's enemy is your friend. You guys both hate Jews. Or at least, Germany once did... remember? You're going after the wrong country. The French hate Jews as well. So do the Brits. So... like, stop with this bullshit, guys.
  • Scientists think they found proof of the existence of extra dimensions. NO BIG DEAL OR ANYTHING. My theory is that not only has the planet been visited by aliens, but we've also been encountering "aliens" from other dimensions on the regular. Ever have dejavu or ESP? I think that's actually us encountering the time dimension slicing through our lives. This makes more sense when you watch Carl Sagen talk about it.
  • Wanna know what's happening at the Large Hadron Collider? Here's an update! Looks like they've managed to trap some anti-matter.
  • Scientists say that global weather is going to get even more devastating thanks to climate change.
  • Cal-Maine, one of the country's largest egg distributors, are being accused of animal cruelty. There's some pretty horrendous things going on there, and while I haven't yet given up on eating eggs, I am considering it. I gave up eating chicken because nobody gives a shit about chickens, it seems, so they let them live in gross conditions and I am not into that.
  • Shit is getting more bonkers in Haiti. People are attacking peace keepers and accusing them of starting the cholera outbreak. I hate to say it, but it's possible. I mean, there's already speculation that the US used HAARP to cause the earthquake.
  • Are MySpace and Facebook joining forces? They're gonna make some sort of announcement at 12 PST today.
  • Satellite imagery shows activity over North Korea nuclear testing site.

  • Wow. Today's news was so tin-foil-hat worthy. Sorry.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

HAVE YOU HEARD?: JIMMY FALLON AND BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN COVERING "WHIP MY HAIR"

I've been loving that Willow Smith song "Whip My Hair" since September 7, 2010.

I even called it the Best Song of 2010.

I need to thank Audrey Buchanan for sending me this cover that Jimmy Fallon did as Neil Young with Bruce Springsteen as Bruce Springsteen:

HAVE YOU HEARD?: THE JOY FORMIDABLE

Last night I finally got to see a band I've been loving loving loving for months: The Joy Formidable.

A few months ago, after I had seen Jenny Eliscu and Gurj Bassi tweet about them a bunch, my friend Peter Gaston sent me their album, A Balloon Called Moaning, and I instantly fell in love. Like, within 30 seconds of listening to the first song I heard, which was "The Greatest Light is The Greatest Shade," I was dumbfounded by how a band this good could exist:



I would listen to that song non-stop for hours and days. It was dreamy like My Bloody Valentine, but poppy like the Smashing Pumpkins and the perfect song to get me relaxed whenever I was stressing.

I found myself riding my bike around the city with that song pumping through my headphones -- never loud enough -- making me feel like I was flying through the streets in a movie of my own.

Seeing the Joy Formidable last night was amazing. Watching the three piece take over the stage and enchanting the audience with adorableness as they cited their sadness over yesterday being the last day of their tour was too much cuteness to handle... but don't get me wrong, they're not a cute band. Performance-wise, Ritzy played her guitar with as much primal ease as Kurt Cobain, flailing around at times and never missing a note. I looked around to see if there was another guitarist on stage because I couldn't believe how great she was -- not because she was a girl, but because she was just amazing. She didn't seem tethered to an instrument twice her size... rather, it seemed like it was an extra appendage (that she knew how to control way better than any appendages I was actually born with).

It's been so long since I've had a chance to just get so completely lost while watching a band. Thank you, Joy Formidable.



New Single:

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING





Tuesday, November 16, 2010

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING




An elementary school in Provincetown, MA will make condoms readily available to students. While their official stance is that they don't want the kids to be having sex, they'd rather that the students be protected than not. I fully support this concept. I'd rather a bunch of sexually active 10 year olds than pregnant ones. I grew up in Tenafly, NJ and we had a really amazing sex-ed curriculum and education. We learned so much that all the students were too scared to have sex. I think about 75% of us graduated virgins. Virgins convinced that we'd get AIDS without a condom and STDs no matter what. Nobody got pregnant when I was in school and a fuckton of my classmates went on to the top colleges. Sex Ed is kind of a great thing.

Speaking of babies... Over 300 dead baby fetuses were found in a Buddhist temple in Thailand. Uh... what?

Japan has successfully brought back the first asteroid dust to Earth! I can't wait til they find out that there's some sort of super fuel components and BP decides to make Space their next money maker.

People in Europe (and eventually the States) can look forward to colder winters thanks to Climate Change. Over the weekend I was watching the 'Underwater Worlds' episode of "Ancient Aliens" on The History Channel (watch it here) and they fascinatingly discovered the remains of cities underwater that would have been built about 10,000 years before humanoids were thought to be able to do such a thing. What if, in 10,000 years, our ancestors find our ruins under water and wonder how primitive man ever did such a thing. Hmm...

The Beatles are finally going to be available on iTunes! Great timing guys! Just when nobody actually pays for music.

Prince William is now engaged to Kate Middleton. Finally. If she was in my family (and Prince William was Jewish) they would've been dated for like 2 months before everyone put pressure on us to get engaged and married.

A residential building collapsed in New Delhi, India, killing 61 people. So sad.

New York City! Get ready for iris scans!!!!

Monday, November 15, 2010

INTRODUCING... SUPERNOVA1979C

The big announcement from NASA was the discovery of an infant blackhole they are calling SuperNova1979C.

It might not be a black hole, but it probably is. And it looks like SuperNova1979C is about 31 years old, give or take 50 million light years.

The exciting thing for scientists is that this is the youngest ever observed "black hole" and will give scientists to research how they behave and how they happen.

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

NASA is going to be making a big announcement today at 12:30EST. According to their site:
"NASA will hold a news conference at 12:30 p.m. EST on Monday, Nov. 15, to discuss the Chandra X-ray Observatory's discovery of an exceptional object in our cosmic neighborhood."
What could that mean?! It's not about the Gamma bubbles, since that was discovered by Fermilab. Could it actually be the discovery of Nibiru? Was Zecharia Sitchin actually right?! As my friends like to tell me, "The Aliens are finally coming to take you home!" Either way, I've got my HAARP averting tin-foil hat on, and I'm ready to listen.

There was a huge skyscraper fire in Shanghai.

The British couple that has been held hostage by Somali pirates for over a year have finally been freed. I really can't believe we live in a day where pirates are such a threat.

Caterpillar just bought Bucyrus - a mining equipment manufacturer - for $8.6 Billion. Just gonna put my Nancy Drew hat on and say that Caterpillar know of something that big needs to be mined, and knows that they're gonna make their money back. Gold is up to $1600/ounce. Could there be a mystery reserve that they've discovered? Maybe on the Moon?

Friday, November 12, 2010

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING


Murders in NYC are back up 15% this year. Hide your kids and hide your wife.

The Post Office lost $8.5 BILLION last year. Not like, they lost it in the mail... but more like, they're going broke. Here's an idea for them: Stop hiring such lazy assholes.

Cholera in Haiti has claimed 796 victims and over 200,000 are in danger of catching the highly contagious flu. Where's Wycleff now?!

That pesky Indonesian Volcano, Merapi, is really messing things up over there. The death toll reached 206 and over 380,000 people have been displaced. Scientists warn that it could get worse, which might not be TOTALLY bad news. With Mt. Merapi situated so close to the equator, if it emits a large enough quantity of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, it could cool our global climate a few degrees and that could be a huge help to living things as the ozone starts depleting. However, if the sulfur dioxide doesn't make it high up enough, we could have a lot of acid rain on our hands. Wait and see?


Thursday, November 11, 2010

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING


Check out our giant space bubbles. They're in the center of the Milky Way and they're 25,000 light years wide. Scientists have no idea what the eff they are.

Now there's a streak in the NYC skyline -- WHICH I MISSED!!!!! I'm calling shenanigans. It's a contrail for sure.

Oil prices are now nearly $90/barrel. There's 40 billion barrels of untapped oil that was just discovered in Brazil. The biggest reason Brazil elected Dilma Rousseff was because she was the former Chief of Energy. She ran all that energy stuff, and now that there's $3,600,000,000,000 (did i do that math right?) in Brazil's land, shit is gonna be huge. I suggest you pick up Portuguese for Dummies asap.

Hollywood and Bollywood are working on becoming bff. I knew "Outsourced" was a great show.

Lastly, there's been a Polio outbreak in Africa. I didn't realize that's still around!


Wednesday, November 10, 2010

HAVE YOU HEARD?: JESSIE J

A new friend of mine just texted me to say "Do you know Jessie J, musical artiste? Vulgar gal rap." Naturally, I want to know about all things musically new that I haven't heard before, especially when it involves a woman breaking down the barriers of femininity that society places on them.

Last night I had a conversation with someone about the concept of "post-feminism" and how I grew up as one of the guys and never thought of myself as a woman/girl held back by the constraints of society. Both my mom and dad worked, and that was never weird at home. My mom also cooked, and that was just what it was. I was always expected to do as well as the guys, if not better (because my parents would tell me that I was THE BEST). Even as the smallest one in my social group (of more guys than girls), it was never assumed that I couldn't do something because I was a girl... it wasn't even assumed that I couldn't reach things that were high up since I was always climbing on stuff like a monkey. Basically, me and my female friends grew up as dudes with slits and that was the ONLY difference (particularly since I didn’t grow boobs until I was about 18).

So the verb "banging" comes into play. It means "to bang" as in "to have intercourse." I was asked "Can a girl bang a guy?" I say yes. I say that if the girl is telling a story about having "intercourse" with a guy, then she can say "i banged that dude." Similarly, a guy can say "i banged that girl," or a person might be able to say "we banged." It puts the power into the hands of the story teller, which, in my mind, neutralizes gender roles. It's not necessarily a bad thing if a person says they banged another person, but it’s slightly less vulgar than to say “fucked” and a lot less awkward than saying “had intercourse with,” or “made love to,” or “railed.”

Anyway, I am a fan of this Jessie J character’s song “Do It Like a Dude,” for this precise reason. She wants to bang and is unapologetic about that. She also c0-wrote Miley Cyrus' "Party in the U.S.A." with Dr. Luke, so I love her for that alone. God Bless!


TEAM FACELIFT

My boy, Matt Raz, edited a video for Team Facelift's "Heart Attack," which was directed by Tommy Mas and is of a song off their new mixtape called "6 Grams". Catch a cameo by one of my favorite dudes on Twitter and in music, Prince Terrence.

I need to go to the party in this video. Matt, where is it and why am I not there?

Oh... and if you've never heard of Team Facelift, their ish doesn't typically sound like this. They usually sound more like License to Ill-era Beastie Boys... which was the Boys' best era, if you ask me.


TEAM FACELIFT - "Heart Attack" from Matt Raz on Vimeo.

DAWN OF THE TED

Love Zombies? Love teddy bears? You're in luck (via @lvlewitinn)



WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING




Schools in Broward County, Florida, have been on lockdown after an email was sent that said "something big was going to happen."

The G-20 Summit has begun in Seoul.

General Motors reports $2 Billion profit. Not bad.


Tuesday, November 9, 2010

THE RACCOON WHISPERER

My friend Caiti Beth is in Alabama and she video'd her friend going out to the woods and luring a raccoon (whom she appears to have a prior relationship with) back to her house to play with. I suggest you don't try this at home, but certainly enjoy the adroableness below:

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING




So I'm going to try and make this a daily thing where I post about news things that happened while you were sleeping. Typically, this will go up earlier in the day, but I was super busy this morning.

A mysterious missile appeared to have been launched off the coast of California. Nobody seems to know what it was. Even the Pentagon is boggled. Here's my three guesses:
1. US trying to attack the Indonesian volcano.
2. Unidentified Submerged Object of other worldly origin, thus proving Colleen Thomas RIGHT.
3. Uh... something we should be really effing nervous about.

The Large Hadron Collider made a big bang!

A pill with an embedded microchip. It's meant to make sure you're taking the right meds at the right time. Not so sure I feel ok with this.


Everyone is nervous about Israel's East Jerusalem housing plan.


Monday, November 8, 2010

THE ALIENS COMETH

So says Colleen Thomas:



I love all these stories of the End of Days that call out specific dates of when things are supposed to happen. According to the video above, that date is TODAY. But Colleen seems to think that Obama is just heading over to India today. Whoops. I think her dates are a bit off.

I'm all about the crazy stuff happening in our world that proves that we totally messed shit up. The price of gold skyrocketing. The climate being out of whack. The price of cotton going up because fields all over the world are being destroyed by the messed up climate. Nuclear reactors going out of whack. Nuclear missiles going offline. Planes dropping out of the sky. Volcanoes exploding. Oil pouring out of the earth from a sprout we planted. I could probably go on and on and on with all those actual examples of the End of Days. However, effing cooks like Colleen has to ruin it for the not-so-crazy-crazies like myself.

Sheesh.

David Icke ruins it too:


links via Videogum and Gawker.

I LOVE OUTSOURCED

This weekend I kept it super lazy. I watched four episodes of my new favorite show "Outsourced" on TWC's On-Demand service. I'm not sure if i love the show because it's funny, which it is, or if because the main character is a dude played by the new object of my affection: Ben Rappaport.

Ben Rappaport looks like this:


Friday, November 5, 2010

THE BEST SWIMSUITS

It's been a while since I've worn a one-piece swimsuit, and I've never really written about anything fashion oriented on here because I'm more of a person who just wears clothing. I could take it or leave it as long as it basically looks cool.

However, these swimsuits from Black Milk are INCREDIBLE: