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10 Apr 2010 12:16

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Offbeat: RyanAir charges for bathrooms, American Restroom Association exists

  • It is a human right to freely eliminate yourself. It’s conceivable that people could be stuck on an airline for 15 to 20 hours. The idea of having only one bathroom in a situation like that is … strange.
  • University of Maryland professor Dr. Steven Soifer • Regarding RyanAir’s decision to cut the number of bathrooms from three to one, and make that one coin-operated. While he may miss the boat on some aspects of this (he argues that it violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, even though RyanAir is a European company, on other aspects he’s dead-on. Fun fact: Soifer is the co-founder of the American Restroom Association and Shy Bladder Center, two organizations we can’t believe exist. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Apr 2010 20:32

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Biz, Culture: NBC is trying to subliminally convince you to recycle

  • In this case it fell right into the realm of what we do. We’d have to say no if it hurt the integrity of the show.
  • “The Office” executive producer Paul “Toby the HR guy” Lieberstein • Discussing his network’s push to get his show (and every other on their many networks) to produce one environmentally-themed episode each year. (In the case of “The Office,” Dwight dressed up as a superhero obsessed with recycling.) It’s called “behavior placement,” and like product placement, the goal is to get you to buy stuff. The journalism world has something like this – if a newspaper publishes a weekly section about cars, it’s because they want to sell car ads. But the way NBC handles it is way beyond what most networks do. It’s this sort of innovative thinking that got Jay Leno on the air at 10 p.m. Remember that. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Apr 2010 21:55

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Offbeat: Whatever the heck an “Oriental Yeti” is, we’re scared of it

Alright, what sick (#&@ thought it was a good idea to shave a dog and pretend it was some mysterious Yeti-like creature? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

16 Mar 2010 10:28

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World: Thailand’s got a big mess of red blood on their hands

  • If this government is willing to step over our blood it means they really don’t care about us.
  • Red Shirt protester Amphan Nawangern • Regarding the liters of blood dumped on the ground in front of the Thai capital today. The blood was gathered with medical assistance then dumped out en masse. As you might guess, critics of the movement have been skeptical of the bloodletting, calling it a publicity stunt. But in a way it’s kind of hilarious. Just think if something like this happened in the U.S. It’d be the weirdest thing ever. It’s still kind of the weirdest thing ever. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 1 Comment • Permalink

13 Mar 2010 12:35

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Biz: Tribune Co.’s CEO micromanages what can be said on the radio

  • 119 words and phrases you can’t say on WGN radio source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

10 Mar 2010 11:01

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Offbeat: Breast milk referred to as both “cheese” and “liquid gold”

  • We realized we were going to have to throw a lot of it out, pour this liquid gold down the drain, and we were not going to do that. So, me being a chef, we said, ‘Hey, let’s make some cheese!’
  • Chef Daniel Angerer • Regarding his decision to turn his fiancee’s breast milk into cheese, because, hey, that’s creepy. The dish is popular with patrons at New York’s Klee Brasserie restaurant, but otherwise incredibly controversial. Experts on a whole suggest it’s a really bad idea to eat it, due to the fact that it can expose others to the mother’s health issues (HIV and hepatitis in particular). Angerer’s fiance, Lori Mason, however, is healthy, which is why they felt it was safe to serve it at a restaurant. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

27 Feb 2010 23:23

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Music: Saturday Mixtape: We’re punishing you with experimental music

  • Experimental music is in its gravy days. With bands from Animal Collective to Grizzly Bear taking on-its-face odd music to the Billboard charts, we figured we were due to look back at some of the roots of weird tuneage. Most of this stuff isn’t as listenable as, say, Lady Gaga, but there’s something to be said about the challenge they offer.
  • 1. This is kinda accessible. Steve Reich is perhaps the most famous name of minimalist music. From magnetic-tape-looped early works such as “It’s Gonna Rain” to later instrumental and sampled works, he’s a huge influence on what indie rock has become. You can hear, for example, some of Sufjan Stevens’ musical left fields in “Pulses.”
  • 2. Talk about acquired taste. The Residents may perhaps be the most acquired taste in the history of rock music, but not one without a great history. A bunch of experimental raiders, the band has managed to keep its public profile secret for about 40 years now – or about four times longer than KISS did. And in 1979, they even got nominated for a Grammy for “Eskimo,” an album of made-up Inuit folk tales. The comparisons to Animal Collective are myriad.
  • 3. Also acquired taste. The Red Crayola/Krayola is a band that famously knew little about playing their instruments at first (but lots about freaking out), and now is a musical front for psych-rock survivor Mayo Thompson, who later worked with members of Tortoise. Fun fact: The guy playing keys on “Hurricane Fighter Plane” is Roky Erickson, a garage-rock icon who has a pretty interesting history of his own.
  • 4. By this point, also acquired. Scott Walker’s early career – which leaned heavily on orchestral pop – was hugely influential on dudes such as Beck (“Scott 4” is one of the most underrated albums ever). But by the early ’80s, he started going off the grid, to the point that by 1995’s “Tilt,” his music was completely unrecognizable. “Farmer in the City” is a beautiful, cinematic tune, but it’s also a complete mind-screw.
  • 5. This is acquired, too. Captain Beefheart‘s weird, off-key masterpiece, “Trout Mask Replica,” still isn’t very easy to find legally online, but debut album “Safe as Milk” still has a lot of the cluster-screwing elements that his later works did. If you had Howlin’ Wolf drop a lot of acid, you might get kinda close.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

23 Feb 2010 10:48

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Offbeat: We’re breaking our AP boycott because this story is just too weird

  • Weird: Woman decides to get head cyrogenically frozen. Normal: The woman changes her mind and wants her body kept intact. Super-strange: The company in charge of doing it is putting up a huge legal fight to keep her head for some stupid reason. Alcor, BTW, is the company that played baseball with Ted Williams’ body parts.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Feb 2010 21:07

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U.S.: Amy Bishop’s history comes back to haunt her again

  • She was a suspect in a 1993 mail bombing at Harvard. A day after it was reported she was implicated in the 1986 murder of her brother, the accused University of Alabama-Huntsville shooter had another skeleton fall out of her closet. Amy Bishop, along with her husband James Anderson, were questioned in a mail bomb case involving Harvard professor Dr. Paul Rosenberg, While Anderson says they weren’t suspects, a more disturbing find at the time was a novel Bishop was writing about a woman who killed her brother and hoped to make amends by becoming a great scientist. Sound familiar? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

12 Feb 2010 13:27

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U.S.: Virginia Tech tries to gank funding from school paper over comments

  • This is not an issue of freedom of the press. The concern is not the content per se, although some of it is alarming – homophobic and racist and so forth.
  • Virginia Tech Vice President for Student Affairs Ed Spencer • Regarding the school’s push to take funding away from the school paper, The Collegiate Times, due to the fact that their site allows anonymous comments. Apparently, it breaks some stupid policy. While the paper has independence from the school, they do receive $70,000 yearly, along with free office space. In case you need a single reason why this is a bad idea, whatever the policy may be, we have a pretty good one: The paper’s excellent coverage of the school’s 2007 shooting. Student journalism needs to be protected. (hat tip Charles Apple) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 4 Comments • Permalink
 
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