Another one bites the dust.

 Limewire, which no one was really using anymore anyway, finally went away for good. After a four year battle with the music industry, the "file sharing" service that was well known by anyone who's ever burned a CD or owned an ipod was shut down by court order. The service had been facing lawsuits since its upstart, often, getting off with minimal punishment.

Limewire's plan to get out of this is to try and make themselves legitimate, like what Napster did. I doubt their abilities to do this because of all the damages they'll have to pay after losing the court battle, which could be in the billions. Also, I didn't think anyone used Napster after it went legit, so I really doubt anyone's going to use Limewire.

Now, the fact that Limewire is gone doesn't change a whole lot in the world of pirating music, there are certainly many other ways out there to get music without paying for it. Dirpy, being my personal favorite at the moment (also apparently legal) is a great way to get songs on an individual basis, and there's no threat of viruses. I've personally never bought music on itunes, I think that last CD I bought was Marcy Playground, because back in '97 "sex and candy" was the illest. I hope these things don't change, because, while Limewire going away doesn't effect me very much, if it leads to me having to pay for music in the future, well, that's just going to suck.

(cnet news)

Have you ever had the hiccups for so long you could just kill someone?

(miami herald)

Jennifer Mee, who you may know as "hiccup girl" (I didn't know who she was either) is back in the news. A few years ago Mee made headlines after coming down with a case of the hiccups that lasted for a matter of months. You can see a video of her from 2007 with the hiccups (here), she seems like a pretty normal who was even appalled at the thought of committing a crime like smoking marijuana. Well apparently three years brings a lot of change since she's being charged for murder. On Saturday, Mee, now 19, lured a man (presumably with her fetching good looks) into a Florida home where he was then robbed and eventually murdered by two armed men.

The thing about this story that I find to be interesting is that we're hearing about it at all. This has become a national news story that we probably wouldn't have heard anything about if this girl hadn't been hiccuping for a few months in '07. It was really a true feat of great reporting to hear the anchor on the news this morning say "Hey remember this girl?" (They then cut to a cutesy archived news report of Mee trying various at-home remedies to cure hiccups.) After watching the video, I assumed she had been hiccuping since 2007 and they were going to tell me a heartwarming story  about finally finding a cure. Nope, she went bat-shit crazy and killed somebody.

Is it safe to say that sometimes stereotypes are funny?

(Source)

Let's just go ahead and leave this first one alone, but for the most part I think that most of us can comfortably say that we notice stereotypes in our daily lives. While I don't know if it's necessary to point them out, they are hilarious to see when they actually do happen.

Let me assure you, this won't be a preachy entry talking about the damaging effects of stereotypes, there's plenty of articles out there that will talk about that. Instead, I'd rather talk about this generally uncomfortable topic, and see if we can find the humor in some of the most common ones.


Watch an episode of "Mad Men" and you'll undoubtedly see all sorts of older stereotypes; rich guys nailing their secretaries, pregnant mother's smoking, and more rich guys cheating on their wives. Now these are all fun to watch on TV but the fact that they're on television takes away from the fact that this kind of stuff actually happens.

With Tiger Woods we witnessed what, in the stereotypical world, we can call a double-whammy. Tiger, who has a partial Asian background, is also African American. When his now ex-wife Elin Nordegren seemingly initially found out about Woods' indiscretions, he hopped in his Escalade and proceeded to slam into a tree. Sleeping pills or not we can't help but notice the coincidence here. Then, when the girls he was involved with came out we truly saw something special. Now this isn't to say that every Asian is bad driver and that all African American men like fat white women, but when we saw the case with Tiger you can't help but find it somewhat humorous. Admittedly, being neither Asian nor African-American this is an uncomfortable topic to talk about so, we'll move on.

My point, though, is that just because stereotypes are generalized conceptions that can sometimes be hurtful, one can't help but have a chuckle when they actually happen. If, for instance, a big female softball player steps up to the plate. She proceeds to hit the game winning ball over the stands and out of the park, she runs the bases, and as she comes to home plate she jumps into the arms of her companion and the two women have a celebratory kiss. Is the feeling in the stands of shock? No, of course not... fucking homophobes.

Can we give it a rest?

(popculturemadness)

The “Food Network” isn’t the only perpetrator here but they definitely produce a good amount of garbage, in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong I like of few of the shows but for the most part, and this may be because I’m reading Anthony Bourdain’s books, but the food shows are getting old.

I begin by talking about shows about cake, cupcakes, or cake products. Is it really necessary to have more than one show? Did other channels find that there had been so much success with Food Network’s “Ace of Cakes” that TLC needed to go and create “Cake Boss”? I, for one, kind of liked “Cake Boss” for those of you who are unfamiliar it takes place in a New Jersey Italian bakery. This makes for great Soprano-esque accents and certainly a lot of yelling. However, like all of these shows about cake you watch for a while and then realize… it’s about fucking cake! Somehow these shows manage to instill a sense of tension when a big cake is being walked down the stairs; we’re supposed to be sitting on the edge of our seats while the suspenseful music plays in the background. I’ll concede though, for a few episodes they had me. Take some silly accents, a friendly looking Italian guy like Buddy (The Cake Boss), and you’ve got simple mindless television that people will watch, it’s genius.

 Next are shows about shows which involve a traveling host who tries food and makes silly faces and snappy comments to the camera. (Yes I’m aware that Anthony Bourdain does this but I choose to believe that he’s above everyone else.) There’s really not many of these I can stand, and yet for some reason I’ve watched more than my fair share. I choose to believe that this is how most people feel about these shows, lots of people watch them, lots of people don’t know why. The Travel Channel’s,  “Man vs. Food” follows a host, who apparently has a background in the food industry, while he travels the country and stuffs his face. There are many others, but I’ll jump to my main point, the zaniest of them all, Guy Fieri. He travels the country in his bowling shirts, classic cars, and perhaps most noticeable, his frosted tips. I’m sure he’s a perfectly nice guy but his show literally has no point. He watches food get prepared, eats food, then licks his fingers and lets out an emphatic “good golly miss molly” or similar catch phrase. 

 There’s much more to go on this topic but this has turned into a rant perhaps to be continued at another time. My one wish is that for every Paula Dean on the Food Network there was three Giada’s instead of the other way around… have you seen Giada? Look at her, she looks like a beautiful food-cooking goddess, she should be an inspiration to women everywhere.

Sources: (Guy Fieri, Giada)

Oh for the love of god

(webparatodos)

Deanna Favre, (pictured driving a lawnmower, presumably because she needs the vibration to make up for where Brett lacks proper equipment) was at "Good Morning America" today, promoting her book? It seems like it may be poor timing , you know, because her husband is making national media for allegedly sending a picture message of his penis. She didn't address the incident directly but simply said:
   "I'm a woman of faith And faith has gotten me    through many difficult struggles. It will get me through this one" (abcnews)

I must have missed the part in the bible where it said thou shalt forgive thy spouse for allegedly texting thine junk. At any rate it seems as though she's gonna put up with more of Brett's bullshit, hopefully all that praying pays off for her. 

As for that Casanova Brett Favre, if he actually did do this we can only wonder how many times he's tried this little move. In the world of future hall of fame quarterbacks it may be an accepted practice to leave creepy voicemails and send even creepier pictures.

When's Glee on again?

(GQ)

 I've never watched Glee... on account that I'm a man. However, the people at Glee are either really clever and know how to target a new male audience, or Lea Michele just decided she'd like to branch out after this whole singing fad ends.

I could see how that could be the case, if you see what she looks like on the actual show, she's portrayed as a dorky not so good looking girl (as I'm lead to believe). This role could definitely lead to some typecasting just look at Ugly Betty... you'll have a tough time finding her though since she fell off the face of the Earth after that piece of shit show was canceled. Lea though, I think she'll have other assets to fall back on after this whole glee thing ends.

I'll talk about it once and we'll move on...

(Kansascity.com)

As if this isn't already a worn out topic, yes the new rules regarding head hunting are bullshit. Urlacher said it best that pretty soon they may as well just start slapping on flags and playing it that way. After the three big head shots this weekend the NFL decided to crack down. This weekend really proves that when it rains it pours, three big helmet to helmet shots, Robinson/Jackson, Harrison/Mariquois, and Merriweather/Heap.


Now if you ask me Merriweather's hit on Heap looked to be the wildest one and had the highest "bone-jar factor" Heap's just an animal and was able to recover shortly after. Had this been the only hit this weekend I believe that Merriweather would've only gotten a $10k fine instead of $50k and I definitely don't think that the rule would've been put in place.


If we're looking at Robinson on Jackson I don't think that people would be looking at it so much for the helmet on helmet, just that it was a hard hit. First of all, it wasn't helmet on helmet, he lead with his shoulder. Secondly, they both went down after the hit. While it was a pretty severe crash it was a clean hit and definitely something to expect while watching football. The fact that Dunta Robinson is being charged as much as Merriweather is pretty ridiculous and I'm a Pats fan.

The Harrison and Mariquois collision was considered by the league to be the worst hit presumably because of the $75,000 fine dealt to James Harrison. It was a hard hit but I'm not sure it was $25k harder.

The thing that's making me sickest about this story isn't the constant replay of the videos or the speculation on what can be done. It’s all of these self-righteous sports reporters talking about how the sanctity of the football game is its violence and that's why Americans love it. While, yes, violence is a perk that goes along with it, I'm not sitting at my TV screaming for some hits.

Football is America's most watched sport at the moment because of the fact that it's just more interesting than all of the others. There are only 16 games in a season and a 3 week playoff to the Superbowl. Every game matters, this isn't baseball, basketball, hockey, or much much much worse, soccer. We watch football because the story line is much more interesting the entire sport is based on watching from beginning to end. Unlike basketball, baseball, and even hockey (I leave soccer out of this because merely mentioning it puts a damper on my mood.) you basically don't have to pay attention until the end of these sports seasons because the beginning essentially doesn't matter. While some may tune in and enjoy football because it is indeed more violent, these are probably the same people who also enjoyed lighting the family cat on fire when they were children.

I think that changing this rule after this weekend is setting a bad precedent for the future. If the NFL starts changing rules on a case by case basis then we're going to end up in a whole shit mess of new rules and the game itself is going to end up changing. For the record, I'm for the 18 game season I know people are worried because it’s something we're not used to, but it's two more football games a year, there's no downside.