News-Record.com

Not sure how I missed this, but Bill Maher is calling for a movement to save Levi Johnston, the young man who knocked up Sarah Palin's daughter and immediately became her "fiance."

Web site here.

All in one take. Impressive.

Lip Dub - Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger from amandalynferri on Vimeo.

It was only a matter of time.

From the Frisky.com story:

The title of the pornographic homage to the governor of Alaska is “Nailin’ Paylin.” Contrary to earlier reports, the movie is in pre-production. One Jerry T. is set to direct, and porn star Lisa Ann will be taking on the role of Palin—er, “Paylin.” According to HUSTLER, “Nailin’ Paylin” is a “naughty adventure to the wild side of that sexy Alaska governor,” featuring “girl-on-girl lovin’,” “nailing the Russians, who come knocking on her back-door,” and a younger Palin getting seduced by her creationist college professor who “will explain a ‘big bang’ theory even she can’t deny!” Also included: a three-way hardcore sex scene starring porn stars as Palin/Paylin, Hillary Clinton, and Condoleezza Rice. Of course, no political porn satire would be complete without a salute to Fox News—a Bill O’Reilly stand-in will announce the movie’s multiple sex scandals as they unfold. “Nailin’ Paylin” will be released just in time for the November elections, natch.

Randy Newman, one of my favorite songwriters, has a new album out -- Harps and Angels.

It's good stuff.

You can listen to Newman play songs from the album live here.

And here's him doing a solo rendition of "A Few Words in Defense of Our Country"...

Reader Brad K. sends an item about the AFP Photo service running a picture of Tina Fey as an actual picture of Sarah Palin.

Oops.

Yesterday, during a session with college journalists from around the state over at A&T, N&R editor John Robinson asked the students:

"How many of you heard Sarah Palin say that she could see Russia from her house?"

A number of hands were raised as the students laughed.

"And how many of you know that she didn't actually say that?" he then asked. "That it was Tina Fey playing her on SNL?"

Hands went down and there was some nervous chatter.

She is damned good...

Saw this post today on one of the many goofball sites I check for the political scuttlebutt and other things worth a chuckle.

A few NSFW images, but this one elicited a chuckle:

and this:

and this:

I'm done. Happy Friday.

How did I never see this clip of Jerry Seinfeld saying what I've always wanted to say to Larry King?

King seems never to know anything about his guests or what they do -- even the big ones. He hides behind this "Well, I'm just asking questions the viewers may not know" thing, but it's patently obvious that he just does little or no prep for most interviews.

Watching this is glorious.

I know I've posted about the new "I'm a PC" ads from Microsoft before -- but now that I've seen this one with a solo Pharrell Williams I'm just...puzzled.

Nowhere in this ad does Pharrell or anyone else make any arguments for a PC being better than a Mac -- not for music, not for art, not for anything that Pharrell could actually speak to with authority and passion. He just talks about loving music and says that he uses a PC.

All right...and?

They've seen the actual "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" ads, right? It's true that the Mac guy looks cooler...but he also makes an actual argument for what's so great about Macs in each commercial. This is what makes the commercials so great.

These things...they just makes me feel sorry for Microsoft. It's like they're the kid who never learned how to debate intelligently, who just starts rambling and screaming. "Am not! You are! Oh yeah? Well, hip musicians and music producers use me too, you know..."

Having recently lost some weight, I'm down to one pair of jeans that aren't so big I have to hold them up with my belt pulled to its last hole and the denim scrunched up around my waist like I just arrived at Ellis Island.

So, I went shopping for a new pair of jeans this week. And found that it's almost impossible to buy a pair of jeans these days that haven't been distressed, specially washed or rinsed or treated during their dye process to give them some unusual look or feel. Beyond that, there are so many "cuts" from which to choose that it literally gave me a headache.

In the end the winner was... Levi's 501's.

Now I'm ready to escape from a chain gang and be chased through the woods by dogs and guys with shotguns to the terrifying sounds of Nine Inch Nails...

Even these aren't made the way they always were -- and my pair says the venerable American icon is now manufactured in Mexico and Egypt. But still - their simplicity wins the day.

Here's an interesting photo essay from NYC photographer David Friedman's trip to a denim distressing factory in Kentucky.

It's weird and wonderful to see how these high-end jeans get beaten up.

Why is still beyond me. I like breaking a pair in myself.

Proper Attire condoms are, apparently, a new brand of condom catering to people who don't feel traditional condoms are "stylish" enough.

The brand's slogan: "Proper Attire: Required for Entry"

From their website:

Old stereotypes about who should buy condoms are so last season! PROPER ATTIRE® condoms are the "must-have" accessory and were designed with sexually active, stylish women in mind.

The fashionably chic PROPER ATTIRE design helps ensure that now you can feel completely comfortable buying condoms and carrying them with you. With 5 trendy styles — Basic (regular); Color (colored); Dots (studded); XL (extra large); and Proper Attire’s Yigal Azrouël Sheer (ultra thin) — PROPER ATTIRE condoms are a safe yet fun way to protect yourself and your partner and do it with style!

While I'm populist in many ways I'm not the kind of guy who shakes his head at brand preference and tells you that it's all the same stuff. There are a number of brands (including condom brands) to which I'm loyal. But the idea that prophylactics just aren't stylish enough is pushing it a little far, isn't it?

It's hard enough being a young guy buying condoms for the first time without worrying that your date is going to think your condoms are "so last season."

Entertainment Weekly calls Oliver Stone's biopic of the sitting president "unusual and inescapably interesting".

But reviewer Todd McCarthy also says the film "is unable to achieve more than a sort of engaging pop-history pageant and amateur, if not inapt, psychological evaluation, due to the unavoidable lack of perspective and a final act that has yet to be written."

Sounds about right -- but I still think I'm going to see it.

What about you guys?

NPR has posted one of the concerts in which Liz Phair performs her breakthrough album Exile in Guyville in its entirety.

You can listen here.

Contains strong language, of course -- cause, you know, it's Liz Phair.

Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Berkley Breathed is ending his popular Sunday comic Opus, which often swings from weird and whimsical to bitingly satirical.

He says he's "destroying the village in order to save it."

Breathed tells the L.A. Times: "30 years of cartooning to end. I’m destroying the village to save it. Opus would inevitably become a ranting mouthpiece in the coming wicked days, and I respect the other parts of him too much to see that happen. The Michael Moore part of me would kill the part of him that was important to his fans.”

Breathed seems at once eaten alive by cynicism and playfully hopeful.

“With the crisis in Wall Street and Washington, I’m suspending my comic strip to assist the nation," he told the L.A. Times. "The best way I can help is to leave politics permanently and write funny stories for America’s kids. I call on John McCain to join me.”

Google is looking out for you.

... just like that college friend who held your hair back while you ralphed up a night of Jager, or the buddy who kept you from taking home that "special someone" who was likely to give you coyote arm the next morning.

From ABC:

Many a relationship has been prolonged -- and perhaps many a career has been cut short -- by the dreaded drunken e-mail.

But now, Google's new motto seems to be "think before you drink and draft."

And to help keep e-casualties to a minimum, it has launched a new program to stop users from e-mailing under the influence.

Launched Monday, Mail Goggles (a playful riff on Beer Goggles) asks you to complete a few simple math problems within 60 seconds before you're allowed to send off your late-night missives.

If you can make it through the math, your message goes on its merry way and you can continue to e-mail without further checks, although there's no stopping your text messages.

Never been a problem. Right fellas? Girls?

Tonight's the premiere of the new Christian Slater spy/split personality show "My Own Worst Enemy." It's on at 10 p.m. Eastern on NBC.

Being a sucker for espionage, I can't wait to see if this ends up being terrific or a spectacular bomb.

Sipped a couple bottles of Budweiser's American Ale over the weekend while camping.

This is a beer that's good to hand a friend who wants to move from the Miller Lites, Bud Lites and Michelobs of the world but is afraid to go with anything that's "too dark" or "too heavy". The American Ale reminds me of a Yuengling in body and color, but with no aftertaste.

In taste, compared to regular ol' Bud (up there with PBR and Miller High Life in the cheap-cold-domestic/lawn mower beer category), the American Ale is a little sweeter, darker and slightly hoppier than Budweiser. But if you're a hop-head, it won't satisfy. And if you like malty stuff, it's less sweet than Yuengling, too.

The best analogy for this beer is to imagine it as the American-born offspring from an Irish red and a red-blooded 'merican.

As an ironic footnote, this beer is unrolled just as A-B is in the process of being bought by InBev.

From a good site for people with an irreverent sense of humor:

After hearing what sounded like a much diminished Hank Williams Jr.'s spin on Johnny Cash, his dad's tunes and right wing versions of his own songs last week, I'm cleansing myself with two country albums streaming online today:

*All Aboard: A Tribute to Johnny Cash - Groups like The Hold Steady, Dresden Dolls, MxPx and The Bouncing Souls take on Cash songs like Cry, Cry, Cry, Man in Black and Folsom Prison Blues. The album will is available on four colors of vinyl , with access to digital copies included in the sleeve. All proceeds go to a breast cancer charity.

Cardinalology, the new record by (maybe overly) prolific alt-country guy (and North Carolina native) Ryan Adams and his band The Cardinals, is streaming for free online for 48 hours. It's available in stores Oct. 28.

Just saw this on Reason.com:

At Baskin Robbins, the results are in, and Whirl of Change ("Peanut-nougat ice cream whirled with chunks of chocolate-covered peanut brittle and a caramel ribbon") beat Straight Talk Crunch ("Caramel ribbon, chocolate pieces, candy red states and crunchy mixed nuts swirled into White Chocolate ice cream") with 51 percent of the vote. Half a million votes were cast.

At 7-11, coffee drinkers can choose between an Obama cup and a McCain cup. Obama is crushing McCain with 60 percent of the popular vote in the great cup buy-up. He is also winning in every state where 7-11 exists, except New Hampshire.

So, decaf or regular? And where's the Obama Lager and McCain Porter?

BoingBoing Gadgets has the best review I've read yet of T-Mobile's G1 Android phone.

For those coming late: Android is Google's new, open source operating system for mobile phones. It is being offered first on the G1 model smartphone and has been hyped in some corners of the Net as a possible "iPhone Killer."

Reviewer Joel Johnson says not so fast on that one, but found much to like about the phone.

From the review...

So it IS possible to be amused, to have your heart warmed and to throw up a little in your mouth all at once...

Check out this pretty groovy mashup of Barack Obama and Lee Dorsey's classic "Yes We Can."

Richard Dreyfuss, who plays Dick Cheney in Oliver Stone's "W." biopic, slammed the movie in an appearance on "The View."

He called it "6/8ths of a great film" and said he was disappointed Stone didn't come to some conclusion at the end -- a common criticism so far. He also compared working under Stone to working under Sean Hannity.

Which Stone's gotta love.

Negotiations between the Obama campaign and ABC have broken down and they will be the only major network not airing the half hour Obama spot on Wednesday. Instead, Pushing Daisies will air at its regular time.

The network is now telling viewers they "have a choice" on Wednesday night...

I love Pushing Daisies -- but my choice? I'll DVR it.

Saturday Night Live's sketch on the Obama program has been on a constant loop in my head for days...

Over at BoingBoing Cory Doctorow is taking a look at a new book about Bat-Manga - the explosion of Batman comic books created for the Japanese market during the 1960s, when the classic Adam West TV series was being marketed there.

The best part of the story? Apparently the Japanese man tasked with selling Batman to his countrymen thought the stories weren't strange and outlandish enough to go over there and made Batman even weirder -- adding robots, dinosaurs and villains that rise from the dead.

My thing is...the American Batman was never weirder than he was in the 1960s. He was already traveling in time, going to different worlds, fighting aliens and magical villains, disguising himself as other super-heroes and...you know, regularly battling one of the weirdest rouges galleries of villains in comic book history with some of the most outlandish gadgetry imaginable. And the Japanese thought that wasn't enough? You'd have to seriously look at their manga and anime to truly wrap your head around that one.

The book, Bat-Manga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan, is available now.

Check out more photos from the book (including weird Japanese Batman toys) here.