Sadly, I Do Know the Muffin Man

When I first got my driving permit and began driving with my parents, they would always tell me that driving is a privilege and not a right. That saying always annoyed me every time i heard it, despite its truthfulness. Lately, I've seen this saying...but modified slightly. It now says, "Spandex is a privilege, not a right." Gosh, oh so true. and funny, because we've all seen someone who really should not have been wearing spandex. Yuck.

This sort of philosophy shouldn't be limited to just spandex, but all tight clothes in general. People come in different shapes and sizes, and there's nothing wrong with that. What's wrong is when those people wear clothes two sizes too small. Please, if you're one of those people, do us all a favor and admit it really isn't the mirror that makes that shirt look tight. That muffin top really is there, and people really can see more crack than they want. If you need another saying, just go with, "crack is whack, put it back." I know that's the motto i get dressed to each morning. But if you're one of those people, don't worry, you're not alone! Even famous people make such fashion faux pas, like Britney Spears for example. Take a look for yourself, if you feel the need. Beware, it is slightly disturbing. Photo

If we think about such dressing in terms of criminal behavior, it's a well known fact that possession of crack carries with a pretty harsh sentence. So maybe if we started prosecuting all the people who blatantly violate crack laws multiple times, other people will start to catch on and in the end it will save the general population from forcing us to gouge out our eyes.

Unfortunately, these are all silly pipe dreams, and I best go back to reality.

Wii (R) Fit

Wii. It's more than just a silly pee joke and the french word for "yes". It is in fact, the greatest game system ever to be put on the face of the earth. (and it costs less than an xbox!). Hah, take that Microsoft!

Nintendo has always been a leader in the video game world, and with the release of the Wii, they make no exception. The wireless wand motion sensor is awesome and one of a kind. The Wii has all the coolest and newest games with things like Wii Sports, and even the good ol' Nintendo classics such as Mario Kart, Mario Party, and Super Smash Brothers. The next big thing that will be coming to the Wii is called Wii Fit.

Wii Fit is not just any old game. It is actually a work out program of sorts, meant to counter the notion that video games leads to childhood obesity. Go Nintendo! This game also brings with it a different kind of controller. It involves a balance board that controls and reads your movements. Wii Fit was released in the United States today. Wii Fit has received a hugely popular response in the European countries that is has been released into, and i doubt it will be any different in the United States.

Every thing I have heard of this game has been positive, with one exception. Apparently, a little girl in Britain, who is about 10, was playing the game. When the game calculated her Body Mass Index (BMI), the game straight up told her she was fat. Ouch, that can't do much for your self-esteem. Of course, the little girl cried to mommy and daddy who were outraged. Nintendo issued a formal apology but maintains that the software may not be the most accurate thing in the world, but is still reliable. Well, at least we know who to blame for the next generation of girls with eating disorders.

Miley Doesn't Know

So sometime last week, Miley Cyrus (legally born as Destiny Hope Cyrus...who would name their child that?), aka Hannah Montana made news headlines. Again. After reading about her recent problems with the media and those "inappropriate" pictures, which frankly, showed slightly less than if she were wearing a swim suit, I was slightly worried what sort of trouble dear old Miley had gotten herself into this time.

I was happy to read that in fact she was NOT in rehab yet. PHEW. But, no, she was taking heat for supposedly stealing the opening part of a song and not giving credit to the original band. Terrible, terrible, i say! What sort of example is she setting for all of those teeny weeny impressionable people who watch the Disney channel?! But then i saw just what song by what group she was accused of stealing. The song is called "Scotty Doesn't Know" by the very much unheard of band called Lustra. Prior to hearing about this, I had heard of Lustra, and in fact listen to "Scotty Doesn't Know" on a regular basis. The song got its sort of break on the movie Eurotrip....and quite frankly, I would be surprised if Miley has ever seen Eurotrip, though it is a quality movie.

I just didn't buy that Miley or whom ever writes her songs actually copied that song. So i delved a little deeper and found out that the part of Mileys song in question is only the first few seconds, so I just had to have myself a listen. And so I googled a wee bit and found this. You can decide for yourself whether she copied anything or not.



I later learned that Lustra only found out about the supposed copying from a commenter on the bands MySpace page that saids, "Miley Cyrus released a single "Rockstar" with a guitar hook that is very similar to the main guitar riff of 'Scotty Doesn't Know' ... Check it out and sue away."

Dude, Let's Hope You're Not Getting a Dell

If you've bought a computer in the past five years, there's a good chance it was a Dell, seeing as how they're the number one computer sales company, and they ship millions a year. Sadly, if you were one of those people who happened to buy a Dell, those friendly folks at Dell threw in a complimentary music program called Jukebox. Lucky you.

Or you could have been one of those smart people who realizes just how many problems any Windows operating system has in it, and you chose instead to buy a Mac. And of course, if you bought a Mac, you also have iTunes for your music player. Sort of lucky you.

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I happen to belong to the group of people who owns a Dell. And so, I've been stuck with Jukebox for all of these years. I absolutely despise and hate and loathe that program so much...expect for its play list feature. My love for the play list feature happens to overcome all resentment, so I continue to use Jukebox as my main music player on my computer. What I love about the feature is its simplicity. You click on a song from your music library, and it goes into this little box at the top and starts playing the song. From there you can add more songs to this list, save it, burn it, shuffle it, repeat it, all with a simple click of easy to use buttons. It's just great.

But when I bought an iPod, I was forced to download iTunes so I could actually put music on my iPod. After messing with all the downloading woes of trying to put an Apple program on a Windows system, I finally was able to put my music on iTunes as well. For a little bit, I thought I had found my answer to Jukebox. But it just wasn't me. And as I thought about it, i realized it was because the way iTunes handles playlists really irked me. You have to create a whole new playlist if you don't like the one you made earlier, there's the chance of clicking on a list, dragging and dropping it into another, royally fucking over that playlist.(Which I happened to do numerous times). Everything else about iTunes i really loved. Except the playlist feature, and ultimately it forced me back to Jukebox.

Sad, but true.

Now, if someone could create a program that combined Jukebox's playlist feature with all of iTunes other features, I would be...happy.

*Side Note- After using the program for a couple of years, I recently learned I could actually shuffle my whole music library on Jukebox....something I had really wanted to do for a while. Yay Jukebox.

Super Woman

When I hear the name Oprah, I don't picture a well dressed business woman standing on the set of her talk show. Instead, I tend to see Oprah more as a combination of superhero and savvy business woman mixed. It's sort of like taking Superwoman's costume and putting it on Oprah...except the suit isn't made out of spandex. Sorry Oprah, it's just not flattering.

The reason I say this is because of all the amazing things Oprah has done throughout her career. She has her own talk show (which has earned her a number of Emmys), she's a book critic, an actress, owns a successful magazine, and she has a whole of money. She's worth somewhere around the neighborhood of 2.5 billion dollars. Not bad, not bad at all. That amount makes her the worlds only black billionaire. Congratz to you Oprah.

Despite all of her accomplishments, I think the thing that really amazes me about Oprah is her power. I think a good demonstration of this power lies in her book club. Oprah can take a never heard of author and sky rocket them to instant stardom if she gives the book a good review, like she did with James Frey and A Million Little Pieces. Unfortunately, this book turned out to be a fraud and it's never good for your career when Oprah denounces you on national television.

More and more I see Oprah's name everywhere I look. It's on magazines. It's on headlines. On television shows, spoofed in movies, and even managed to make its way into my AP tests. The last one I really got a kick out of. I was taking my AP Lang test and out of nowhere, POW!, it starts talking about Oprah! You know you've made it big time if your name appears in a college board test.

As much power as Oprah has, I don't think I'll be worried until her face starts getting stitched into my toilet paper.

Grand Theft Auto 4

Video games, video games, video games. We've all probably played some sort of video game in our lives, with frequency a wide and varying span. Some of those games probably had guns (GASP) and maybe even a little bit of violence to go along. I know I was shocked every time Mario jumped on those poor little turtles.

Lately, there has been one game in particular that has been getting a terrible reputation due to its violent content. This game is none other than Grand Theft Auto 4. If you've ever played, seen, or heard anything about the Grand Theft Auto series, then you probably already know that it is rather notorious for its content. In GTA, the object is to complete a series of missions, and along the way you are able to use your fantastic skills. These skills include: stealing cars, robbing people, beating down prostitutes, shooting cops, and causing problems in general. You get a variety of weapons to do all of this, like pistols, machine guns, grenades, and fun things of the sort.

The whole game series has gotten a lot of criticism for that kind of stuff. In particular, there have been instances where teenage boys who have gone out and stolen cars, and even shot police officers and claim that they Grand Theft Auto taught them that it was ok to do this. And of course there are groups and lawyers out there who will defend kids like this, arguing the video game "made" them commit those crimes. Seriously, learn to make your own decisions and take some self-responsibility for once. Not everything can be solved through a law suit.

If these kinds of video games are so bad, why don't we have every kid who plays Halo going out and trying to battle aliens? Sure, there might be one or two cases who were influenced by the video game, but if the video game hadn't gotten there first, cable tv would have eventually. Maybe we should blame the parents for being terrible parents. Our parents played video games. They had Mario, and Asteroid, and Donkey Kong. But we don't have a bunch adults going around trying to hop down sewer pipes, throwing barrels, or preparing for intergalactic asteroid collisions. They seemed to have turned out okay.

Hogan Doesn't Know Best

Occasionally I need inspiration for what my blog topics and go searching through the Internet and TV and whatever else i feel like. Today, I happen to choose the good old television. As I was flipping through the channels, I came upon court TV. HA. Who watches Court TV? Well, me apparently because that is exactly where I found what I was looking for. There, I saw a sorrowed looking Nick Hogan reading an apology off a piece of paper in a court room. I hadn't known Nick done anything, but quickly learned that he was charged and receive eight months in prison for felony reckless driving that left his friend severally and critically injured, to a point where he needs care the rest of his life. I was sad to hear about his friend, but I felt no shock or surprise at all to know that Nick was involved in a car accident.

Let me rewind. A couple of years ago, the Hogan family gained their 15 minutes of fame through a reality show on VH1 called Hogan Knows Best. It followed the family around their everyday life and was frankly rather boring. The one or two episodes i actually did watch showed Nick with a love for reckless driving and fast cars. It also showed that Hulk's wife bought the family chickens as pets. Wooow. And I wonder why it got cancelled. The show also focused around the daughter, Brooke. The only thing i really have to say about Brooke is that her blond hair fit her well. Oh, and she had a "music career". This so called music career flopped around and died faster than a fish out of water. A very, very sick fish.

The other two main characters in the show were of course Hulk himself, and his wife. Even from the little of the show i saw, it didn't take a marriage counselor to see that these two had their problems. They were always squabbling about theeee dumbest things I've ever heard (minus some of the dialogue from the Hills). And what do ya know, Mr. And Mrs. Hogan filed for divorce. I wonder if the producers are going to do another season of Hogan Knows Best. I don't think I've ever seen a reality show where the people involved were in an on going divorce. Sounds like quality TV to me.

In conclusion, I think it's fair to say that Hogan probably doesn't know best.

I smell BBQ

So all of last week in physics, we had a couple members of the local police department come in and talk to us about their jobs and how they actually use physics during their jobs. We were able to use the same physics equations that they do in their jobs and solve a mock incident. (Who knew you could actually use physics in the real world?). During this time, the officers of course asked if anyone had questions. My personal favorite question happened to be, "Could you taser me?" or something to that extent. Not surprisingly, the officer declined. I sorta wish he would of used it and maybe that would have stopped the endless spewing of dumbness out of this particular kids mouth. Anywho.

But since that question came up, I've been thinking about Tasers. First off, I had forgotten that the local police department even had tasers. Then I began wondering about the use of tasers in police departments and even personal use. In the news, I always hear about the debate whether or not the use of a taser is safe and just how non lethal they really are. They are suppose to be an alternative to using deadly force and meant to subdue unruly suspects, but there have been a number of deaths around the country since the taser has come into use by police departments. Kind of an uneasy feeling there. (On a side note, the word taser comes from a ficitional weapon called the Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle. Yay for acronyms.)

One of the more well known incidents of questionable taser use comes from a John Kerry speech where a University of Florida student verbally went off on John Kerry and police took him away where they tasered him and created the now infamous viral video of the student yelling, "Don't tase me, bro!". Was this use of a taser proper? I'll leave that up to you. But being tasered is quite similar to sticking your finger into a light socket. I've heard peronsal accounts of just how much that hurts. Here's the video:

Then there is the thought that one day ordinary everyday people will be able to carry a taser around with them. It's like a gun...but much more discrete. Given our countrys problem with gun control as it is, i really hope that tasers never become publically available.

YaGlue

Pretty much for as long as I can remember, I've always used Google as my one and only search engine. It's hard to remember a time pre-Google, but I do have vague memories of such a time existing. When I needed to find something, I think i would use Ask Jeeves (who frankly, was never much help) and Yahoo. I kind of remember Yahoo sort of dominating the search engine world. But that all changed when Google came around. It's signature white background with the Google proudly displayed and the cool things they make it into around holidays...it's basically what I live for.

Until recently, I thought Yahoo was on its way down the toilet. All i ever used it for was the occasional game of pool and a free alternate email address at time when AOL was being its usual shitty self. But turns out Yahoo! isn't quite dead yet. They plan on releasing a new, better, superior search engine to try and compete with Google. I was shocked that anyone would actually try and compete with Google, but hey, whatever floats their boats. This new search engine is going to be called Glue. It is going to provide users with more than just a list of plain old boring blue links to click on. It will bring you videos, pictures, and news from a variety of sources. Exciting, i agree. Currently, this new program is being tested in the good ol' country of India (yay outsourcing?) and is expected to makes its United States debut sometime this summer.

On a slightly different note, Microsoft actually tried to buy out Yahoo for the measly sum of 47.5 billion dollars. Psh, pocket change. Thankfully, Yahoo! Inc. turned down this offer and Microsoft has since withdraw their bid. Which is good, because Microsoft doesn't need to control anymore of the world than it already does.

Puddle Jumping

I have a number of personal heroes in my life. This list includes Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Simon Cowel, the lead singer of Motion City Soundtrack, and my brother, just to name a few. But recently, someone else has had the distinct honor of joining the list. She goes by the name of Leona Lewis.

If you haven't heard of Leona Lewis by now, you should probably stop what ever you're doing and go google her. It will change your life for the better. Leona Lewis is the biggest thing currently on the air waves with her hit "Bleeding Love". Rarely do I actually listen to the radio, since my iPod has far better taste in music than any of the radio stations, but for some reason I decided to switch to the radio for a day. On my way to school, I heard Mizz Lewis and her killer song. Then, in some freak coincedence, I hear it on my way home from school! Crazy. After that, she had basically won me over.

The thing that really kills me about Mizz Lewis is the fact that she has been big over seas for over a year now, and I had never heard of her until recently. American Idol's sweetheart, Simon Cowel, actually helped Mizz Lewis get her big break in the United States. (Who knew he was actually good for anything?) At the same time, it makes me kind of sad knowing that I have to live in America with music of a lesser quality. All sorts of quality bands have come out of the United Kingdom...Oasis, The Beatles, and the Killers for instance. Then i become even more depressed when I think of all the potentially great bands i will never listen to in the UK. And to think, if we had never had the Revolutionary War, i wouldn't be in this position.

Trippin'

Sometime last week, a very momentous event happened. The nature of the situation was, and still is, very tragic. A great man in the scientific field passed away. He could be put up in the ranks of such men as Albert Einstein, and Watson and Crick. His name was Albert Hofman.

Most of you are probably asking, "Who on earth is that man?" Well I'll tell you. Mr. Hofman was a Swiss chemist, and the inventor of LSD. Mr. Hofman's famous discovery happened on April 16, 1943, when he was researching LSD and accidently absorbed a tiny amount through his fingers. (Man, good thing he wasn't wearing gloves that day). After he experienced the effects of the LSD, he decided to do more experimentation with it and led him to become an advocate of psychedlics for their effects on the human mind.

One of the most shocking things about Mr. Hofman's death was his age--102. Since reading about him, i've always thought that he somehow found a way to prolong his age with his psychedelic drugs. I guess this is good news for all those hippies from the 60's and 70's who took LSD. Maybe they too will have rather long lives. I suppose the last trip Mr. Hofman ever took was on his way into the ground to be buried. I hope it was a good one.

When a reporter from The Onion.com asked a woman what she thought of the situation, she replied, "Shit, did anyone remember to write down the recipie for LSD?"

American (not my) Idol

As I was flipping through my iTunes music library the other day on shuffle, it landed on a song that really got me thinking. It happened to be none other than the great American idol, Kelly Clarkson. Everytime I hear her, it takes me back to the great first season of American Idol (the only one actually worth watching)

The first season of American Idol was the only season that I fully watched. I sorta watched the second season, but by that point, I couldn't take anymore of Ryan Seacrest. He finally scared me away. I think what really kept me hooked to the first season was the singers. They actually had decent contestants on the first season. I mean, the only winner from American Idol to actually do anything with their life is Kelly Clarkson. (I guess Kelly and Justin did make that movie that no one actually saw, so it doesn't count.) The only other winners i can think that are notable are Clay Aiken, who had a minor hit or two, and Taylor Hicks, due to his stricking resemblence to my dad.

Then there are the judges of American Idol. You have Simon Cowel, Paula Abdul, and Randy Jackson. Not being an avid American Idol watcher, I don't actually know if Randy is still alive, but we'll assume so for now. It's not my fault his name never ends up in the news. Simon and Paula on the other hand, are quite the news makers. Paula is just a old and washed up 80's singer who wouldn't know good music if it was handed to her on a silver platter. Simon, despite many peoples dislike for him, I find to be a rather interesting character. He comes from the great island nation of Britain, where he started a similiar show over there, which turned out to be a great success, so he just had to bring it over here as well. Most people just think he is an American Idol judge and doesn't do anything else, but he is very busy behind the scenes in the music industry. Whadda a multitasker he is. Probably my favorite thing about Simon is the fact he helped bring Leona Lewis to America as well. He deserves a medal in my book.

But, I may have been a wee bit unfair in my judgement, so to get the whole experience, I plan on road tripping it up to Chicago for next seasons try outs. Woohoo.