Remember the old days when David Letterman was relevant and not getting his ass handed to him by Jay Leno? Surely you do… I mean, it was a long time ago, but a lot of things haven’t changed. David Letterman was doing jokes about hookers in Times Square, doing “stupid human tricks,” and flinging his notecards into the fake NYC set behind him to the fake sound of glass breaking being played by that permanent #2 nobody Paul Shaffer.

Taken in the context of what a meaningless nobody he is and what an artifact of what was cool about television in 1965 he is, here’s David Letterman being a classless scumbag jizzbucket to Paris Hilton… Watch as he cringingly beats the same joke into the ground as the laugh track plays uproarious laughs at the unfunniest shit you’ve ever seen…

Yep. Really classy Letterman, you piece of washed up old trash. Keep treating your guests like that and you’ll be doing “stupid washed up host tricks” on every show in no time.

via Tinseltown Trash

Technorati Tags: paris hilton, david letterman, piece of shit

Imagine a world where a maniacal holocaust denier who’s a known fundamentalist and a terrorist financier is someone who makes you swoon…

I know I’m a Jewish lesbian and he’d probably have me killed. But still, the guy speaks some blunt truths about the Bush Administration that make me swoon…

[...]

I want to be very clear. There are certainly many things about Ahmadinejad that I abhor — locking up dissidents, executing of gay folks, denying the fact of the Holocaust, potentially adding another dangerous nuclear power to the world and, in general, stifling democracy. Even still, I can’t help but be turned on by his frank rhetoric calling out the horrors of the Bush Administration and, for that matter, generations of US foreign policy preceding.

This strikes me as the same type of logic of some of the other left-wing kooks that insist that while Osama bin Laden may have killed a few people, we should listen to him to understand his point of view. I guess calling this idiot a terrorist sympathizer would probably be just stating the obvious, but I’d be willing to bet if I told her her ramblings were unpatriotic and actually called her a terrorist sympathizer, she’d wrap herself in the flag and call me a right-wing fascist.

I’ll just leave it at “you’re a fucking moron, carpet muncher.”

I think that works so much better.

Technorati Tags: idiot, sallykohn, moron

I was lucky enough to be at the game yesterday. The Mets beat the crap out of the Marlins 13-0 and John Maine pitched one of the finest games a Mets pitcher has ever pitched.

The game wasn’t without its drama though. After hitting two doubles and driving in three, the Marlins pitched at Luis Castillo’s head in a Roger Clemensesque scumbag move. The next pitch went soaring past Castillo’s back. In other words, he was being thrown at. Castillo wasn’t happy and approached the mound. Words were shouted and both benches and bullpens cleared. After the dust cleared, the shot I took above happened. Miguel Olivo, catcher for the Marlins had wandered all the way up to third base and taunted Reyes (Olivo’s account makes no sense; if it was Reyes doing the taunting, that’s fine, but what was Olivo doing close enough to third base to hear it?) and then took a few swings at him.

I couldn’t believe what was happening, honestly, but I loved that the Mets were fired up. They decimated the Marlins pitching staff, and John Maine pitched a gem of a game which means today’s matchup between the Mets and Marlins is another must-win.

After a mere 24 hours in first place, the Phillies choked out of it, losing 4-2 to the Nats, and now with the season on the line, both teams face a win and in situation.

I know what I’ll be watching today. The Mets control their own destiny. Seeing them fired up and killing the ball yesterday gave me hope that the season won’t end as bad today as I thought it was going to on Friday night.

Technorati Tags: mets, baseball, marlins, phillies, choke

Rush Limbaugh completely disassembles the tools at Media Morons for America. In the interest of trying to paint Limbaugh as a chicken-hawk (oh yay, we’re back to that shit again), the idiots at MMA took recent comments Limbaugh made about fake soldier Jesse MacBeth and painted them as if he was saying them about all soldiers against the continued occupation of Iraq.

Here’s how they worded it…

During the September 26 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh called service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq “phony soldiers.” He made the comment while discussing with a caller a conversation he had with a previous caller, “Mike from Chicago,” who said he “used to be military,” and “believe[s] that we should pull out of Iraq.” Limbaugh told the second caller, whom he identified as “Mike, this one from Olympia, Washington,” that “[t]here’s a lot” that people who favor U.S. withdrawal “don’t understand” and that when asked why the United States should pull out, their only answer is, ” ‘Well, we just gotta bring the troops home.’ … ‘Save the — keeps the troops safe’ or whatever,” adding, “[I]t’s not possible, intellectually, to follow these people.” “Mike” from Olympia replied, “No, it’s not, and what’s really funny is, they never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media.” Limbaugh interjected, “The phony soldiers.” The caller, who had earlier said, “I am a serving American military, in the Army,” agreed, replying, “The phony soldiers.”

On and on they go and they’ve done one hell of a job getting the talking points to John Kerry and Jim Webb who both made impassioned speeches on the Senate floor. Kerry, who if you can believe it, actually served in Vietnam (bet you didn’t know that, did you?), and is a bit miffed that someone would dare disrespect soldiers. After all, it’s not telling the truth like having actors tell about war crimes they committed in ‘nam…

The Massachusetts senator issued a public statement calling Limbaugh’s comments “disgusting” and “an insult to American troops.” Kerry continued, saying that Limbaugh succeeded in questioning the patriotism of those who have risked their lives and died for the radio host’s right to sit safely in a studio “peddling hate.”

Kerry went on to note an op-ed by seven members of the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division critical to President Bush’s Iraq policy published by the New York Times August 19th. The senator made sure Limbaugh knew that two of the soldiers featured in the piece died earlier this month in Baghdad and dared the talk show host to call them ‘phony soldiers’.

The problem?

It isn’t true.

Here’s Limbaugh talking about the incident and playing the clip that started this mocktroversy:

But wait, this whole thing gets better. Rush claimed to have played the full clip with Mike from Ohio. He didn’t. Media Matters got him, right? They apparently think so, but read their post. He didn’t cut out anything related to the “phony soldiers” comment whatsoever. Not a single word.

Limbaugh correctly notes this is Michael J. Fox all over again. Surely you know who Michael J. Fox is. He’s the world’s foremost authority on stem cell research who is above all criticism because he has Parkinson’s Disease. In this case, they’re trying to paint Limbaugh as critical of all soldiers because he dared call out on the carpet a proven liar. A proven fraud. A proven fake. A proven shill for the anti-war movement.

You can make all the arguments against the war and for withdrawal and not be a fake soldier or phony soldier. However, if your name is Jesse MacBeth and you’ve admitted publicly in federal court to lying about your service record and the atrocities you saw committed in Iraq, you are a piece of shit and people have an obligation to call you one.

Limbaugh didn’t criticize John Q. Soldier. No proof of such criticisms exist even in the “unedited” version of the transcript that Media Morons posted.

The proof isn’t there because the issue doesn’t exist.

End of story.

Technorati Tags: rush limbaugh, jesse macbeth, chicken hawks, fraud, media matters for america

Wifey and I were sitting in our office yesterday, and I smelled that familiar smell of rain hitting hot concrete. “Do you smell rain?” I asked her. “Nope, just someone barbecuing.” I shrugged, went out on the terrace and looked around, and sure enough there was no rain. “Must be smelling things,” I thought to myself.

So I go back to my desk and writing the Digital Life post, and all of a sudden I hear what sounds like a machine gun on the window next to Beth’s desk. I look up and it’s absolutely pouring like I’ve never seen in my life and I can hear the wind roaring past the train tracks. The tree was rocking pretty badly and the wind was coming so hard that it was arming a car alarm on a car parked on the street.

Here’s the scene as I saw it yesterday…

The nice part about it, though, is that the temperature dropped about ten degrees afterward and it looks like Summer has finally choked its last gasp in New York City.

Good riddance.

Technorati Tags: rain, nyc, bronx, new york

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My bud Jose and I went down to Javits today to catch Digital Life 2007. It’s an annual show meant to highlight products for those of us interested in the “digital lifestyle” meaning there’s some kind of tech product throughout the show to help make your mundane non-digital life more digital. All in all, a geek like me should totally be within my element there, but I have to say the show was massively disappointing.

First of all, the show didn’t even take up the entire main hall of the Javits center. That in itself was ridiculous to me. I can only imagine what they were charging exhibitors because a parade of people paying to see your products and only seeing half a convention center sends a bad message: that companies aren’t interested. That, of course brings me to my second point: No one showed.

Here’s what we saw…

Microsoft, Intel, Logitech, HP, Nokia and Toshiba were the big names there. Other companies like Logitech, Palm, and Dell had booths that were nothing to write home about, although Dell did co-sponsor a massive tractor trailer setup with Intel. Other than that? Not a whole lot to see.

HP had a nice booth. We got to check out their new MediaSmart TVs and they were seriously impressive. Big smart televisions with wide screens, WiFi, and all kinds of other goodies. If you’re a computer-centric TV geek, this isn’t a bad move for you at all.

Toshiba was showing off some amazing televisions. Heroes looked ridiculously good in HD; something I had never seen before. Their booth had a lot of their computers including a line of laptops that was laughably large. One of the machines we saw on the high end had a gorgeous 17 inch screen and a full keyboard, but probably weighed about nine pounds! Overall, Toshiba’s presence was really large and they showed off a lot of products from HD DVD players to TV’s to computers. Even their media players impressed, but frankly, the fact that they run Microsoft’s Plays for Sure means, at least to me, that they’ll never gain any real traction except for the “I want anything that isn’t an iPod” crowd.

We went over to Nokia’s booth, but there wasn’t much going on there. It was barely 15 feet wide and had a few shelves with some products. We played with the new N95 3G for the US (a welcome improvement) as well as the 8 Gig Black version. I was impressed by the N81, which is a sleek slider that the N95 should look like (that’s one of the phones in the video. Take a look at it and you’ll see what I mean). Jose enjoyed the E90, and I’d have to agree. Despite it’s humongousness, it was still a really nice phone with an excellent screen and keyboard. We wanted to see the N800 internet tablet, but the one other guy in the booth was standing there looking at it. Gee thanks, Nokia. You could’ve moved him along especially considering most of his time was spent standing in front of the N800 and not actually doing anything with it. Oh well.

We tried to eyeball the new Palm Centro, but for some reason neither one of us could find it at Palm’s booth. The truth is the word has gotten out about how it’s Palm’s last hope because CBS was there talking to someone about it (he had one in his hand). Frankly, I hope Palm stays around if for nothing else than their historic significance to the PDA world. The Centro might keep them alive, though. It’s going to be really inexpensive and run on Sprint’s EVDO network. And it’s small. Really small. We did catch one in a display case at the Digital Village and I was wholly impressed.

IZ3d was showing off their 22 inch 3D gaming monitor. No, not red/blue 3d. Real 3D with gray glasses. I have to say that I was skeptical before putting the glasses on but a believer within three seconds. Watching the Quake IV demo in 3D was mind blowing. In fact, after one frag with blood flying, a stepped back a bit. It was that convincing.

A surprise for us was the booth for a company called ZipIt Wireless, and they were demoing their new IM WiFi handheld called the Z2. It’s a small device with a full QWERTY keyboard. No recurring monthly fees, and it connects you to Yahoo, MSN, and AIM for all your IM needs. It worked nicely, was small enough, and at $149 seemed to be priced right. It’ll be available on 10/1, so if your cellular carrier does what most do and burns you on SMS charges when you send IM’s, this is for you.

We also spent a lot of time talking to the folks at the Neuros booth. Neuros is a favorite company of the Open Source community, namely because they open up their source code and beg for programmers to hack it. Their newest product, the OSD is a promising standard-definition media extender / recorder. Think Apple TV, not high-def, but with a lot more features and a strong programming community behind it. The community is so active that they even developed a YouTube plugin so you can watch YouTube videos right on your TV. The OSD saves files in MP4 format to an SDD card or Memory Stick you can plug into any device that uses them, and be on your way. You can even share files over the network or hang any USB Mass Storage class device off the USB port to save files directly to an external HD. All in all very impressive. It’s priced a bit high at $239, but I spoke to the media contact there and a review unit will be forthcoming shortly. Stay tuned for more details on that when it does.

We got a few minutes to eyeball the Supacam DVi. Had I not just bought my camcorder, this would’ve left with me. It’s a very small and really slick solid state camcorder. Jose seemed impressed by it also, but also said that he’d be leery of any company called Supacam. The guy barking promos into the mic told us to Google the company to see the amazing reviews their last product got. I wonder if he read them at all? Macworld Expo loved it, but they seem to be the only one. In any case, the DVi is a nice cam, and I wouldn’t mind owning one for on-the-go video.

Finally, the most interesting product at the show for us was the Novint Falcon. It’s a ridiculously cool device that, while I don’t see a use for it right now, could change the way we interact with games even more than the Nintendo Wii and that’s saying a lot. Don’t think that the demo and quotes on the site are hype. They’re not. It really is that cool. I don’t know how practical it is, but the experience is sensational.

Overall the show wasn’t too bad, and maybe I over-hyperbolized when I said it was massively disappointing, but we did cover the whole show floor in 3 hours which seems, at least to me, a bit ridiculous. I would’ve liked to have seen Panasonic, Sanyo, Samsung, and Sony there, but they were nowhere to be found. Guess if I want to see what they have to offer, I’ll have to head out to CES this year. We shall see. Maybe having been to CES is what spoiled me to begin with, huh?

Until next time…

Technorati Tags: digital life, dl, ziff davis

Technorati Tags: obama, video, debate, idiot

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Another iPod killer…

That’s an interesting new design, Creative. Well done… Can’t help but think it’s somewhat familiar, though…

Oh, alright then… Carry on.

Technorati Tags: creative labs, apple

AP Photo

I know all the candidates said it, but I’m particularly interested in Edwards saying it for a specific reason…

The leading Democratic White House hopefuls conceded Wednesday night they cannot guarantee to pull all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the end of the next presidential term in 2013.

“I think it’s hard to project four years from now,” said Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois in the opening moments of a campaign debate in the nation’s first primary state.

“It is very difficult to know what we’re going to be inheriting,” added Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

“I cannot make that commitment,” said former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.

Wait, what? You can’t make that commitment? You’ve been making that promise in every campaign e-mail you send out (well every campaign e-mail except for the ones where he’s exploiting his wife’s cancer, anyway) and now you can’t make that commitment? Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are not running on a platform of ending the war in Iraq, Senator, you are.

Here’s the wording he used in a more recent e-mail:

This election is critical to America’s future. We need to elect a president with the vision and courage to end the war in Iraq, stop global warming, provide universal health care for every American, and undo the damage that the Bush administration has done at home and abroad.

And here it is in one prior, released on 9/14:

Two powerful minutes—that’s what we saw last night. After President Bush made yet another argument for continuing the war, JohnEdwards spoke directly to the American people and told us, clearly and simply, why we need to end the war in Iraq now.

JohnEdwards is right—our troops are stuck between a president without a plan to succeed and a Congress without the courage to bring them home. JohnEdwards’ message is unambiguous. No timeline, no funding. No excuses.

No timeline, no funding, no excuses, and no commitment to actually back any of that up. Way to weasel out, Senator.

Now before you go jumping down my throat, you need to hear me out here. I wouldn’t expect any candidate with a brain to predict that they would be able to full withdraw troops by 2013. That’s just asking for trouble and setting a goal that will be the “read my lips, no new taxes” pledge of the modern era. But, with that being said, isn’t it odd that someone like Edwards who’s obsessed with proving how he’s going to end the war when pressed on actually doing it backs down?

If you don’t want to make that commitment in a debate, Senator, stop making it in your campaign e-mails. He can’t have it both ways. Either he believes his e-mails or he believes his debate posturing, but something tells me that answer at the debate was more to keep his opponents from lighting him on fire and making him look incompetent than something he actually believes.

Source

Technorati Tags: john edwards, iraq, democratic debate

See Chris’ post about Smorty here.

Technorati Tags: smorty

Andrew Baron once told Jason Calacanis that he knew nothing about business and that he (Baron) was going to be the next Rupert Murdoch. Fast forward a mere year or so later and while Calacanis isn’t exactly tearing up the charts (Mahalo has potential but I’ll leave it at that), Baron seems to be downright struggling to bring one show into the advertising world.

Unattractive product?

I highly doubt it. RocketBoom gets tons of viewers day after day. While they may have taken a bit of a hit in the post-Amanda days, the show is solid, interesting, and entertaining. Joanne brought with her a sense of confidence and professionalism that Congdon lacked. The content is better (siding more with news and less with weird) and the pacing is quick and attractive for people who don’t have a ton of time. The fanbase is huge and getting those engaged eyeballs to look at your stuff seems like an advertiser’s dream.

Yet, so far, Baron’s move to become Rupert has fallen flat. An ad buy from an ATM manufacturer disappeared and didn’t signal in a trend. Occasionally, we’d see a post-roll spot, but that ended. Now we hear about the new partnership with Blip, a company I have a great deal of affinity for. The difference? Well now Blip gets the ads and runs them on RocketBoom in an ad overlay while you’re watching the show. No more pre-roll or post-roll.

Blip explained the reason for the overlay method to TechCrunch:

Blip.tv has offered pre-roll and post-roll ads on video downloads for about a year, but this is the first time a mid-clip overlay is available. Overlays, which usually look like a banner that pop up during the video, are preferable because, Hudack tells TechCrunch “pre-rolls have the potential to turn off viewers and post-rolls don’t get watched.” Eventually, blip.tv will have the capability to track how many times each ad is viewed or clicked on as well. Up till now, such metrics have been more common for streaming videos than for downloads.

I don’t fault people for making money with their content, but I do find it interesting that Baron went to a distributed form for RocketBoom which, incidentally, includes the embedded player on RocketBoom.com. The next Rupert Murdoch would’ve probably come up with a home-grown self-hosted solution if given the opportunity, but this isn’t the next Rupert Murdoch, it’s the first Andrew Baron; a guy with great content and a big audience without the foggiest idea of how to monetize it.

Don’t overthink it…

Yeah, I know, it looks a little “soft.” There was a smudge on the lens that I didn’t see until it was all done. That being said, it’s still the best take because I tried 3 times to recapture the “thought” on this one and it never really came out as good as the original.

Technorati Tags: censorship, flickr

That’s right folks, it’s finally here! Here’s a list of the stuff we talked about:

Vinny’s DVR Woes
Dog the Bounty Hunter
Survivor
Lots of Food Network discussion
Kid Nation
Kitchen Nightmares
Prison Break

And a few other smaller topics mixed in. Next week’s shownotes will indeed be better, we promise.

We hope to be listed in iTunes by the end of the week, but until then you can download the current episode here…

Idiot Box theme song:

* Funky Lectro by Star Garden (courtesy of Magnatune)

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• How to Find & Replace Data in MySQL
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Here’s Rudy talking to the NRA last week:

Everyone loved the whole thing and got a good laugh out of it. Rudy is just so charming. His wife calls him. How cute!!! Everyone is thrilled with his family values persona.

Well, turns out ole foot in mouth master Giuliani has a history of doing exactly this. Here he is again, laying it on equally thick:

Rudy, cut the shit.

Seriously.

Technorati Tags: rudy giuliani, bullshit