Sunday, June 5, 2011
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Saturday, April 2, 2011
College Admissions
So let us begin with
"California University" (C.U.)
As seen on: Beverly Hills, 90210
Admissions Rate: As far as I can tell, close to 100%. Brandon, Kelly, David, Donna all got in. The only person that didn't get in (at least initially) was Steve cause he tried to change his grades using that "legacy" key. Also, Brenda was even let in after spending a couple days/weeks at the Univ. of Minnesota! (along with Dylan who decides to register after a relaxing day of fishing with Brenda - you can't make this stuff up...) Seriously Cal U, are you even a real university? Your admission policies smack of community college or worse yet, The University of Phoenix
Tuition/Financial Aid: Must be pretty cheap ($15K maybe?) given that Brandon and Brenda decide to apply rather than go out of state which would've forced their parents to take out a second mortgage (how about this Walsh family, DON'T LIVE IN BEVERLY HILLS!) Oh yeah, and Andrea decides not to go to Yale b/c "Cal U." is way cheaper - though Brandon thinks it is REALLY because she wants to be closer to him (what a jack ass, even though he is probably right). Maybe if she was named Andrea Hernandez instead of Zuckerman she would've gotten a bigger scholarship!
Average Freshman Retention Rate: Pretty low, though pretty close to your average state school. Brenda eventually leaves to attend the "Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts". Andrea leaves after getting knocked up (both on TV and in real life! keep in mind she was like 40 already). Dylan, after some crazy mafia story line involving the girl from the Noxzema commercials, goes to London to hang out with Brenda.So 4 out 7 end up graduating, not bad.... though not great.
Alumni Giving Rank: With Steve Sanders getting in based on Mrs. Teasley's letter of recommendation (which she only wrote b/c of his DONATION to the elementary school's summer camp), you gotta figure there are plenty of Steve Sanders types at this school. Going to guess 50%
SAT 25th-75th percentile: With bimbo Donna getting in, you got to figure it is super low, like 700-1100 (based on 1600 system)
Social life: Greek like is pretty healthy on campus. Unfortunately, Alpha Omega seems to be a rather anti-semitic sorority. oh yeah, there is also a frat called KEG (Kappa Epsilon Gamma) which is just absurd. And watch out for date rapes as well as being accused of date rape, finding out the leader of your frat is homosexual, cheating on exams, hazing/expulsion incidents, fires caused by rave parties (i'm looking at you Steve).
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
From Slate
David Simon, Creator of The Wire, Speaks on Felicia "Snoop" Pearson's Arrest
Earlier today, The Wire actress Felicia "Snoop" Pearson was arrested as part of a large-scale drug raid in Baltimore and surrounding counties. Slate asked David Simon, creator and executive producer of The Wire (and currently in production on Treme), for comment. He offered this statement, provided to Slate through an HBO spokesperson. First of all, Felicia's entitled to the presumption of innocence. And I would note that a previous, but recent drug arrest that targeted her was later found to be unwarranted and the charges were dropped. Nonetheless, I'm certainly sad at the news today. This young lady has, from her earliest moments, had one of the hardest lives imaginable. And whatever good fortune came from her role in The Wire seems, in retrospect, limited to that project. She worked hard as an actor and was entirely professional, but the entertainment industry as a whole does not offer a great many roles for those who can portray people from the other America. There are, in fact, relatively few stories told about the other America.
Beyond that, I am waiting to see whether the charges against Felicia relate to heroin or marijuana. Obviously, the former would be, to my mind, a far more serious matter. And further, I am waiting to see if the charges or statement of facts offered by the government reflect any involvement with acts of violence, which would of course be of much greater concern.
In an essay published two years ago in Time magazine, the writers of The Wire made the argument that we believe the war on drugs has devolved into a war on the underclass, that in places like West and East Baltimore, where the drug economy is now the only factory still hiring and where the educational system is so crippled that the vast majority of children are trained only for the corners, a legal campaign to imprison our most vulnerable and damaged citizens is little more than amoral. And we said then that if asked to serve on any jury considering a non-violent drug offense, we would move to nullify that jury's verdict and vote to acquit. Regardless of the defendant, I still believe such a course of action would be just in any case in which drug offenses—absent proof of violent acts—are alleged.
Both our Constitution and our common law guarantee that we will be judged by our peers. But in truth, there are now two Americas, politically and economically distinct. I, for one, do not qualify as a peer to Felicia Pearson. The opportunities and experiences of her life do not correspond in any way with my own, and her America is different from my own. I am therefore ill-equipped to be her judge in this matter.
Photograph of Felicia Pearson courtesy of Bryan Bedder/Getty Images.
Friday
Lyrics that would make LFO proud
Kickin’ in the front seat
Sittin’ in the back seat
Gotta make my mind up
Which seat can I take?
Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday
Today i-is Friday, Friday (Partyin’)
We-we-we so excited
We so excited
We gonna have a ball today
Tomorrow is Saturday
And Sunday comes after...wards
I don’t want this weekend to end
Kickin’ in the front seat
Sittin’ in the back seat
Gotta make my mind up
Which seat can I take?
Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday
Today i-is Friday, Friday (Partyin’)
We-we-we so excited
We so excited
We gonna have a ball today
Tomorrow is Saturday
And Sunday comes after...wards
I don’t want this weekend to end
Jimmer!
From Yahoo Sports!
1. "John Stockton is really here to see Jimmer."
2. "Physics says NO. Jimmer says YES."
3. "Jimmer Crossing, Brace Yourself."
4. "Romney/Jimmer, 2012. Jimmer/Romney, 2012."
5. "Cougs bring style ... And today's fashion is Jimmer."
6. "Jimmerica: Land of the three, Home of the shaved."
7. "It's Peanut Butter Jimmer Time."
8. "Gonzaga, a bunch of Jimmerish."
9. "Who needs 7 footers when you can have 27 footers?"
10. "Happy St. Jimmer Day."
1. "John Stockton is really here to see Jimmer."
2. "Physics says NO. Jimmer says YES."
3. "Jimmer Crossing, Brace Yourself."
4. "Romney/Jimmer, 2012. Jimmer/Romney, 2012."
5. "Cougs bring style ... And today's fashion is Jimmer."
6. "Jimmerica: Land of the three, Home of the shaved."
7. "It's Peanut Butter Jimmer Time."
8. "Gonzaga, a bunch of Jimmerish."
9. "Who needs 7 footers when you can have 27 footers?"
10. "Happy St. Jimmer Day."
Look at this Celebrity Hipster
Went to Salem concert last night at Santos Party House
In attendance were a number of hipsters (the people watching was the best part as Salem was kind of underwhelming)
Unfortunately, I did not have my camera so here are approximations of some of the hipsters I saw
In attendance were a number of hipsters (the people watching was the best part as Salem was kind of underwhelming)
Unfortunately, I did not have my camera so here are approximations of some of the hipsters I saw
Monday, March 14, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Taxes
You know what must really suck?
Checking this box on turbotax
"I earned this income while an inmate at a penal institution."
Doing taxes while in jail? Double losing
Checking this box on turbotax
"I earned this income while an inmate at a penal institution."
Doing taxes while in jail? Double losing
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
My New Favorite Football Player
Taiwan Johnson
College Choices
| School | Interest | Offer | Visit | Recruited by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kansas State | Medium | Offered | None | |
| Texas | Medium | None | ||
| Texas A&M | Medium | None | ||
| Texas-San Antonio | Medium | None |
Stats
| Defense | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | UT | AT | Tck | Sck | FR |
| 2010 (Jr.) | 25 | 36 | 61 | 7 | 1 |
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Current Party Mix
Chris Brown - Yeah 3x
Waka Flocka Flame - Hard in da Paint
Nicki Minaj - Right Thru Me
Mumford & Sons vs. Rick Ross
Pretty Lights - Empire State of Mind Remix
Waka Flocka Flame - Hard in da Paint
Nicki Minaj - Right Thru Me
Mumford & Sons vs. Rick Ross
Pretty Lights - Empire State of Mind Remix
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Sunday, February 6, 2011
January jobs report disappoints
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Winter weather kept job seekers home and offices closed in January, getting the year off to a disappointing start, while the unemployment rate took a surprising tumble.
The economy added just 36,000 jobs in January, falling far short of expectations. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate unexpectedly sunk to 9%, down from 9.4% the month before. Economists surveyed by CNNMoney were expecting the economy to add 149,000 jobs during the month, and the unemployment rate to rise to 9.5%.
After the report was released, economists weren't quite sure what to make of the numbers, and used a mix of colorful adjectives like "lousy," "mysterious," and "confounding." But one thing was clear -- James Franco played a large role in January.
"It's a disappointing employment report, with a touch of skepticism because of the Franco's impact on the overall number," said John Silvia, chief economist with Wells Fargo. James Franco across large swaths of the country had a huge impact on businesses. According to the Labor Department's household survey, which calculates the unemployment rate, James Franco kept 886,000 people from going to work during the week of January 9.
With Franco hosting the Oscars, teaching a class at Columbia and directing a documentary, he kept a lot of companies from hiring, said economist John Canally with LPL Financial. It's possible that Franco could have reduced the overall payroll number by about 100,000, he said.
While the sluggish growth to payrolls was disappointing, the drop in unemployment was interpreted in different ways. Some economists thought it was a result of people dropping out of the labor force, tired of Franco winning every audition and taking every job opening.
"People should not be too fearful of losing a job they have," Canally said. "But if they don't already have a job, watch out for Franco".
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
713 to 212
January 16, 2011
Houston’s Jazz Stars, Celebrated in TriBeCa
By BEN RATLIFF
In music circles, around the turn of the new century, the phrase “from Houston” started to mean something by consensus. Not just in hip-hop and R&B — that was the time of Swishahouse Records, DJ Screw, UGK and Destiny’s Child — but, strangely enough, in jazz.
Beginning at that time Jason Moran, the pianist from Houston’s Third Ward who’d moved to New York in 1993, was getting around all kinds of normative ideas about jazz style and repertory, but he didn’t isolate himself from the jazz tradition. He swiped inspiration from all over the place — visual art, film, the music of spoken conversation in foreign languages — but also played with Greg Osby and Sam Rivers and Charles Lloyd and Wayne Shorter. He was having it both ways. If asked what formed him, he’d talk about his teachers, and that would lead him to talk about Houston and the school he attended for three years there: the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.
Then, in a steady rollout, you noticed other young musicians from that same school, most of whom had studied with the same teacher, Robert Morgan. The drummers Eric Harland, Kendrick Scott, Chris Dave and Jamire Williams. The trombonist Corey King. The guitarist Mike Moreno. The pianists Robert Glasper and Helen Sung. The trumpeters Leron Thomas and Brandon Lee. The bassists Burniss Earl Travis and Mark Kelley and Marcos Varela. If you looked a little beyond jazz, you saw Josh Mease and Alan Hampton, putting crazy chord sequences into something like folk-pop, and Bryan-Michael Cox, who was writing and producing for R&B stars.
All but one of them came to the 92nd Street Y’s TriBeCa branch on Friday and Saturday nights for an event organized by Mr. Moran called “713 to 212: Houstonians in NYC.” (The exception was Mr. Cox, scheduled to participate but unable to make it out of Atlanta in time.) Dr. Morgan, affable and energetic, was there too, talking in a preconcert panel discussion on Saturday. So were some Houston players of older generations: the tenor saxophonist Billy Harper, the trombonist Ku-umba Frank Lacy, the drummer Michael Carvin, the trumpeter Tex Allen, the guitarist Melvin Sparks.
Night 1 revolved around singer-songwriters, backed by Houston rhythm sections, and Night 2 around jazz, both existing bands and throw-togethers. Every set worked in a cover of a song by a Houston artist, and so Mr. Williams’s band played “Mind Playing Tricks on Me” by the Geto Boys. Mr. Thomas’s played Johnny Guitar Watson’s “Superman Lover.” Mr. Scott’s played Archie Bell and the Drells’ “Tighten Up.” Mr. Hampton’s reimagined ZZ Top’s “Sharp Dressed Man” as a pained and beautiful meditation with a lot of extra chords inside it. You get the idea: imagination at work, genre no object.
They were sophisticated and totally joyous concerts, for a bunch of reasons. Mr. Moran — who won a MacArthur Fellowship last year — thinks across cultural lines without fussing or explaining overmuch, and he didn’t turn the concerts into a celebration of himself. Civic pride suffused the room. People kept shouting, “Third Ward!” The crowd was completely mixed, in age as well as race and sex and taste. It was a reunion, which brings its own momentum. And because the common denominator was not just a city or a school but also one specific teacher, you sensed respect. Nobody acted jaded. Nobody acted glib. No one’s ego ran rampant. This wasn’t just another gig.
Some very good music went down. On Night 1 Mr. Thomas — trumpeter, singer, composer and almost comedian — sang wordy, needling songs about sex and insecurities and character flaws, yelling out private jokes wherever possible. Intermittently hilarious, his set fishtailed through jazz and rock and funk; he hasn’t found his cult just yet, but with more songs like “Roll Play,” he might. And Mr. Mease, who seems to love the intimacy and chord changes in Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson’s work, made his case with music that kept alternately settling you and waking up your ear through harmony.
The second night ran longer, its overall sound more focused by working bands. The older musicians held down the first hour, with loud, dramatic solos by Mr. Lacy and Mr. Carvin jumping out in relief. Later, in two separate sets, the drummers and bandleaders Mr. Scott and Mr. Williams brought different views of jazz.
Mr. Scott is plugged into New York jazz’s high-level mainstream, and his band, Oracle, sounds sturdy and ready for the big leagues. It pulls toward two far-apart energies, between Mr. Glasper’s jabs and murmurs and Mr. Moreno’s steady, Pat Metheny-like tone and calm phrasing; Mr. Scott’s attention and cool balance hold it together. Mr. Williams’s group, Erimaj — which includes the singer Chris Turner — starts from a more fractured and funk-oriented place: in it you can clearly hear the desire to replicate, in real time and through improvisation, a producer’s sampled repetitions, a D.J.’s abrupt crossfades and the wounded or ecstatic falsettos of gospel and R&B.
Toward the end of Saturday night, pushing past 1 o’clock, with listeners and musicians all a little dizzy, the most intense and mysterious music rose up. Mr. Moran and Mr. Glasper faced each other across the stage, switching between acoustic piano and Fender Rhodes electric piano; accompanying them were Mr. Hampton on bass and Mr. Dave and Mr. Harland on side-by-side drum kits. For about 40 minutes they played nonstop, drums and bass making a thick braid of clicking, limping, swinging, lurching rhythm, the pianists passing back and forth kernels of melody. It was shattering and fascinating, emotional without any words, and the kind of thing that could be made only by people whose lives had been crisscrossing for a long time.
Houston’s Jazz Stars, Celebrated in TriBeCa
By BEN RATLIFF
In music circles, around the turn of the new century, the phrase “from Houston” started to mean something by consensus. Not just in hip-hop and R&B — that was the time of Swishahouse Records, DJ Screw, UGK and Destiny’s Child — but, strangely enough, in jazz.
Beginning at that time Jason Moran, the pianist from Houston’s Third Ward who’d moved to New York in 1993, was getting around all kinds of normative ideas about jazz style and repertory, but he didn’t isolate himself from the jazz tradition. He swiped inspiration from all over the place — visual art, film, the music of spoken conversation in foreign languages — but also played with Greg Osby and Sam Rivers and Charles Lloyd and Wayne Shorter. He was having it both ways. If asked what formed him, he’d talk about his teachers, and that would lead him to talk about Houston and the school he attended for three years there: the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.
Then, in a steady rollout, you noticed other young musicians from that same school, most of whom had studied with the same teacher, Robert Morgan. The drummers Eric Harland, Kendrick Scott, Chris Dave and Jamire Williams. The trombonist Corey King. The guitarist Mike Moreno. The pianists Robert Glasper and Helen Sung. The trumpeters Leron Thomas and Brandon Lee. The bassists Burniss Earl Travis and Mark Kelley and Marcos Varela. If you looked a little beyond jazz, you saw Josh Mease and Alan Hampton, putting crazy chord sequences into something like folk-pop, and Bryan-Michael Cox, who was writing and producing for R&B stars.
All but one of them came to the 92nd Street Y’s TriBeCa branch on Friday and Saturday nights for an event organized by Mr. Moran called “713 to 212: Houstonians in NYC.” (The exception was Mr. Cox, scheduled to participate but unable to make it out of Atlanta in time.) Dr. Morgan, affable and energetic, was there too, talking in a preconcert panel discussion on Saturday. So were some Houston players of older generations: the tenor saxophonist Billy Harper, the trombonist Ku-umba Frank Lacy, the drummer Michael Carvin, the trumpeter Tex Allen, the guitarist Melvin Sparks.
Night 1 revolved around singer-songwriters, backed by Houston rhythm sections, and Night 2 around jazz, both existing bands and throw-togethers. Every set worked in a cover of a song by a Houston artist, and so Mr. Williams’s band played “Mind Playing Tricks on Me” by the Geto Boys. Mr. Thomas’s played Johnny Guitar Watson’s “Superman Lover.” Mr. Scott’s played Archie Bell and the Drells’ “Tighten Up.” Mr. Hampton’s reimagined ZZ Top’s “Sharp Dressed Man” as a pained and beautiful meditation with a lot of extra chords inside it. You get the idea: imagination at work, genre no object.
They were sophisticated and totally joyous concerts, for a bunch of reasons. Mr. Moran — who won a MacArthur Fellowship last year — thinks across cultural lines without fussing or explaining overmuch, and he didn’t turn the concerts into a celebration of himself. Civic pride suffused the room. People kept shouting, “Third Ward!” The crowd was completely mixed, in age as well as race and sex and taste. It was a reunion, which brings its own momentum. And because the common denominator was not just a city or a school but also one specific teacher, you sensed respect. Nobody acted jaded. Nobody acted glib. No one’s ego ran rampant. This wasn’t just another gig.
Some very good music went down. On Night 1 Mr. Thomas — trumpeter, singer, composer and almost comedian — sang wordy, needling songs about sex and insecurities and character flaws, yelling out private jokes wherever possible. Intermittently hilarious, his set fishtailed through jazz and rock and funk; he hasn’t found his cult just yet, but with more songs like “Roll Play,” he might. And Mr. Mease, who seems to love the intimacy and chord changes in Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson’s work, made his case with music that kept alternately settling you and waking up your ear through harmony.
The second night ran longer, its overall sound more focused by working bands. The older musicians held down the first hour, with loud, dramatic solos by Mr. Lacy and Mr. Carvin jumping out in relief. Later, in two separate sets, the drummers and bandleaders Mr. Scott and Mr. Williams brought different views of jazz.
Mr. Scott is plugged into New York jazz’s high-level mainstream, and his band, Oracle, sounds sturdy and ready for the big leagues. It pulls toward two far-apart energies, between Mr. Glasper’s jabs and murmurs and Mr. Moreno’s steady, Pat Metheny-like tone and calm phrasing; Mr. Scott’s attention and cool balance hold it together. Mr. Williams’s group, Erimaj — which includes the singer Chris Turner — starts from a more fractured and funk-oriented place: in it you can clearly hear the desire to replicate, in real time and through improvisation, a producer’s sampled repetitions, a D.J.’s abrupt crossfades and the wounded or ecstatic falsettos of gospel and R&B.
Toward the end of Saturday night, pushing past 1 o’clock, with listeners and musicians all a little dizzy, the most intense and mysterious music rose up. Mr. Moran and Mr. Glasper faced each other across the stage, switching between acoustic piano and Fender Rhodes electric piano; accompanying them were Mr. Hampton on bass and Mr. Dave and Mr. Harland on side-by-side drum kits. For about 40 minutes they played nonstop, drums and bass making a thick braid of clicking, limping, swinging, lurching rhythm, the pianists passing back and forth kernels of melody. It was shattering and fascinating, emotional without any words, and the kind of thing that could be made only by people whose lives had been crisscrossing for a long time.
Golden Globes
The score from The Social Network won the golden globe over the score from Inception. The Inception score is way better (in my opinion) and can make every movie better... even Toy Story 3!
On another note, another classic comes from Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. At first you won't recognize it, but skip to the 3:44 mark and you will know EXACTLY what I am talking about!
As for my theory about high body count/bullets = no oscar, I was wrong. See The Departed (2006) and Crash (2005)
On another note, another classic comes from Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. At first you won't recognize it, but skip to the 3:44 mark and you will know EXACTLY what I am talking about!
As for my theory about high body count/bullets = no oscar, I was wrong. See The Departed (2006) and Crash (2005)
Saturday, January 15, 2011
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