World of B

Apologies for the lack of content this week, friends. Fending off this impending unemployment-related panic attack has become quite the time-suck. But let’s move on. Here are a few links worth your while.

This week in Grandparent-Killing News: the Swiss government is introducing condoms made for 12- to 14-year-old kids. Which means kids born in 1998 are now having sex. We are so old.

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I am required by my self-written mancrush contract to link to any interview with Dave Eggers. So, here. Mancrush status: intact.

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I found myself watching “Gossip Girl” this past week (shut up) and was appalled — appalled I say! — at the ridiculousness of the show. I’ll allow Gabe to provide the gory details. It’s safe to say I’m done with “Gossip Girl.”

We have too little time left on earth to spend it watching shows like this. Instead, I shall devote my free time to re-watching Arrested Development.

Companies of the world: are you tired of a bunch of stupid unemployed slackers constantly submitting their resumes and completing applications in the hopes of working for your vaunted organization?

If so, have I got the solution for you: place an article on your Careers page publicizing your implementation of this nifty little application:

Japanese phone maker KDDI has developed a mobile phone that analyzes users’ movements, beaming that information back to the corporate office.

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Specialized software can identify several distinct movements, including walking, stair-climbing, and even cleaning. On-the-job slackers, the jig is up.

The system employs the accelerometers that are now standard in many mobile handsets to determine what sort of tasks workers are performing. And it doesn’t just identify broad categories of movements; the software can identify if a cleaning worker is scrubbing, sweeping, or even bending and lifting to empty a trash bin.

Combine this device with a robust internet-tracking system, and you have potentially made every prospective employee on the planet hate your Orwellian-loving guts. Success! That oughta take care of all that time-consuming employee demand.

You are welcome.

I’m not sure if you’re aware, but apparently the professional association that makes motion pictures will be hosting its annual awards dinner tonight, in which trophies are given out for excellence in various categories.

The association reportedly has this weird tradition in which the award winners are allowed to take the stage and publicly thank a bunch of people for their help or support or whatever. Obviously, no one on the planet could give a shit about the content of these speeches, but since most of the award recipients are former drama majors and misleadingly believe their day job of acting like different people makes them more interesting, they just drone on and on and on for insufferable time lengths, sometimes even crying?

It’s embarrassing, really, and of course this dinner and these awful speeches are nothing any of us outside the industry actually care about, but word is on the street that the association will actually be recording this orgy of rehearsed gratitude and fake applause and they think people will actually watch it on TV. Now I’ve heard of everything.

In honor of this celebration of inflated self-importance, offensively expensive clothing and a sad amount of prying into the lives of people we don’t know and never will and are likely not interesting anyway, I have listed my 12 favorite movies of 2009.

I’ve still not seen Precious or Crazy Heart, so the list isn’t complete, but this weekend marks the statute of limitations on discussing movies from 2009 (unless you’re the MTV Movie Awards, which typically air 18-24 months after year end), so it was now or never. You’re getting now.

Feel free to add in your critiques or favorites in the comments, though both you and I know you won’t.

74. Avatar. My brain tried to sue James Cameron for first-degree assault. I’m still sticking to “in five years, we’re going to be ashamed for liking this movie so much.” We shall see.

12. Anvil. A real-life This Is Spinal Tap that is both depressing and uplifting, and thankfully more of the latter. Good times.

11. Up. Animated movies typically have to be transcendent for me to fall in love with them, and Up fell just short. Incredibly inventive story, though.

10. Michael Jackson’s This Is It. Worth seeing just to witness how lucid Jackson was in his final days.

9. Sugar. Well-researched indie drama about minor-league baseball = a movie after my heart. One of the better sports movies in recent years.

8. District 9. Making a sci-fi flick about aliens battling humans is a dicey proposition, but this one pulled it off by scrubbing the script clean of cliches. The third act was a little too shoot-’em-up for me, but still an intense movie worth a rental.

7. Up in the Air. Smart dialogue and interesting premise, but a few too many holes/shortcuts in the story to be a classic. George Clooney totally nailed the role of “George Clooney.”

6. The Cove. A documentary edited with the intensity of a political drama. Worth seeing if only to debate the implications and fairness of Americans pushing their values on a different culture.

5. In the Loop. Saw this smart, fast-moving, tough-t0-keep-up British political satire a long time ago. I’ve forgotten most of the plot intricacies, but I know I enjoyed every last second of the movie.

4. An Education. A subtle telling of the common “young girl falls for an older man” story. Great script, but not a ton of action. I loved it, but I can begrudgingly admit others might be underwhelmed.

3. Fantastic Mr. Fox. Somehow more human than most of Wes Anderson’s other movies. Funny, clever and a helluva lot of fun to watch.

2. The Hurt Locker. Intense and confusing; exactly how war movies are supposed to feel. This one will stick with you for a while.

1. Inglourious Basterds. Crazy story, tons of action, chockfull of killer dialogue. Quintessential Quentin.

This latest catfight between Simmons and Olbermann has been quite a bit of fun, yes? It’s not every day you see two well-known media members engage in such an overt debate while somehow each making absolutely zero salient points.

After Simmons’s asinine article comparing Tiger Woods’s situation to Muhammed Ali’s comeback in 1970 (“sure Ali had struggles considering he was a draft-dodging outspoken black man in the heat of the Civil Rights era, but Tiger has Us Weekly in his grill 24/7!”), Olbermann disparaged the column and added:

“I am again left to marvel how somebody can rise to a fairly prominent media position with no discernible insight or talent, save for an apparent ability to mix up a vast bowl of word salad very quickly.”

Olbermann, you have already won the lifetime achievement award for “Most Hilariously Over-Dramatic Rants.” The trophy is sitting on your mantel. No one is taking that from you, so please, tone it down. Even Liza Minnelli thinks you’re too emotional.

But then! Just when you thought Olbermann was the shoo-in loser of this adorable spat, Simmons shot back — via Twitter, natch — with:

“KO, please know the feeling is mutual. You’re my worst case scenario for my career in 12 yrs: a pious, unlikable blowhard who lives alone.”

Oof. He almost made a point there, but Simmons sealed his “F” in debate by ending his zinger with “ha ha, you’re single!” I’m not  sure you can come up with a less relevant point. Why not finish up by calling him ugly?

After about six seconds of consideration, I hereby award both these whiners 0 total points. Fellas, for the sake of your bruised reputations and our sanity, please end this debate now.

Was it just me, or did “The Office” bring the pain this week? I’ve made public my growing disenchantment with the show’s eye-rolling circus antics the past couple seasons, but this one seemed to work because the nerve-racking situation at hand led to naturally occurring freak-out sessions. Whatever the reason, I was rolling in laughter throughout. Best episode I’ve seen in a long, long time.

In honor of Cecilia Halpert, allow me to make a cross-sitcom reference and present the greatest chart in the history of sitcom charts:

Quote of the week: “Jesus was a Socialist, and you like him.” This guy laughs in the face at those wieners who are all “never talk religion or politics.” I wish I possessed his bravery, but alas, I enjoy friendship and getting along with people.

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Speaking of subjects guaranteed to get fists-a-clenching: a recent study from a psychologist concluded that liberals and atheists have higher IQs. Apparently god-disbelieving hippies are more evolved than others. This strikes me as a savvy new form of psychological terrorism: release an undeniably controversial study and sit back while people around the world fight to the death over it. Pretty genius, really.

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Recommended: a long, informative story about the David Letterman extortion saga. Man, women love them some Letterman. It’s like I always say, tiny glasses + gap toof + rampant pen flipping = ladies on the jock. It’s an equation as old as time.

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I implore you to check out this ingenious photo over at defective yeti. My favorite thing of the week, by far.

So many great photos of the Vancouver Olympics over at boston.com’s “Big Picture” photoblog. This one is my favorite:

This seems like the perfect photo to show to an alien who has just landed on earth and threatened to invade our planet.

“Invade if you must, Alien, but you should first look at this photographic evidence of the magnificent physical capacity of human beings. We possess gravity-defying abilities of which you can only dream.”

(NOTE: this only applies to aliens who are just *slightly* greater physical specimen than us, have no access to any weaponry, and fail to grasp a fundamental understanding of misleading camera angles.)

Noted by my friend Jon on Twitter and likely emailed to you a dozen times already is the new video for OK Go, who have basically taken the theme from that wonderful Honda Cog commercial and turned up the awesome to eleven. One of the coolest videos ever? One of the coolest videos ever.

See to believe:

Exciting news, world: NPR is treating us all to a free listen of the entire Gorillaz album, for free, a week before its release. Slightly annoyed that the album must be streamed in its entirety, with no options to skip tracks or replay a song? Shut up, you baby, this is the new Gorillaz we’re talking about here.

Having only heard a few minutes of it thus far because that is how long it takes to press play, immediately open a new tab and log in to write this post to share the news with the masses you three, I can hereby report the first two and first-part-of-the-third tracks are very promising.

OK, time to focus on the music. Leave me alone for a while.

I realize picking on a Rick Reilly column is trafficking in the shooting of fish in barrels. For one, it’s been done to death (though I think it behooves all of us to read this classic collection of Reilly’s numerous tooth-based metaphors every so often, for shits n’ chuckles). For another, his arguments that rightfully deserved to be ridiculed are likely penned to bait haters like myself in order to increase site traffic. Such is life.

I have to assume the latter factor was the driving force in Reilly’s latest doozy, in which he writes about Kelly Kulick, the PBA competitor who just won the national bowling title, a feat never accomplished by a woman in any “sport” (his word).

The gist: Reilly is outraged that we, as in every American citizen, didn’t immediately compare Kulick to Susan B. Anthony and bronze a statue in her honor, over what he has deemed — with a straight face, I presume — “one of the single greatest female sporting achievements in history.”

Yes, he wrote that.

Just for good measure, here is my favorite excerpt:

This is the equivalent of “Man Gives Birth!” It’s never happened in any ball sport in American history. Kulick, 32, should own Page 1. Somebody should throw her a parade. Or at least a state dinner.

Congratulations to Kulick, who should be very proud of her accomplishment but also hopefully a bit more aware of the limited popularity of her chosen profession than Reilly here, who sadly (by which I mean hilariously) just suggested the idea of a parade about bowling.

Now that is one toothless argument.

After a weekend that was spent alternating between strenuous exercise and shoveling food down my gullet with Kobayashi-esque enthusiasm, I was reminded of one of my favorite articles of 2009, Time Magazine’s “Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin.”

While the premise is at first blush risky and counterintuitive, the report offers some convincing evidence, including the idea that exercise makes you likely to eat more (duh), and that you’re more likely to reward yourself with junk food (duh part deux), therefore neutralizing the total caloric count. A sad-but-probably-true excerpt:

A standard 20-oz. bottle of Gatorade contains 130 calories. If you’re hot and thirsty after a 20-minute run in summer heat, it’s easy to guzzle that bottle in 20 seconds, in which case the caloric expenditure and the caloric intake are probably a wash. From a weight-loss perspective, you would have been better off sitting on the sofa knitting.

The entire article is highly recommended. Please enjoy while I try to think of an activity to replace my regular Sunday tradition of wolfing down Sugar Babies whilst spinning on my Hula Chair.

Mr. Posnanski has all the sublime details on the story of the Royals mascot, an errant hot dog and a detached retina:

The suit was filed in Jackson County Circuit Court … Coomer says that Sluggerrr — three Rs — was shooting hot dogs out of his hot dog gun like he does every game. And then, as he often does, he put the gun down and started just firing hot dogs into the crowd. Sluggerrr the lion apparently was trying to throw a hot dog behind his back when — according to the lawsuit — he lost control of it and instead it flipping it into the crowd, he rifled it right into Coomer’s face, specifically his left eye. Coomer says this caused a detached retina, and he has twice had surgery, and his eyesight is still not back to normal.

The defense’s argument is that the plaintiff likely scratched his eye out on his own accord, as is common among Royals fans.

/Sad trombone

{+} Presented without comment:

Deputies have arrested a woman they say slipped in her husband’s urine on their bathroom floor and hit him in the face with a glass cup.

OK, one comment: that sentence was like a white-trash game of Mad Libs.

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{+} This week in awesome inventions:

An oil-free deep fryer, which its inventor hopes could hit the market later this year, could let health-conscious consumers have their donuts and eat them, too. Call it an infrared-wave, radiant fryer, or miracle oven — it makes french fries with half the fat, no engineered chemicals like Olestra, and the same crispy, oily goodness we all know and love.

When asked to comment, the fatty living inside me offered a few moans through the door of a bathroom he’d been locked inside “shaving” for the past 45 minutes.

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{+} I first read this comment and thought it was the champagne cooley-drinking redhead from Seinfeld:

“It’s been years since I got my ear pierced but people still talk about it. I had no idea people would be so overjoyed, but I did it for myself because I wanted it. I never thought of it as an element of style. I was sitting having lunch with two guys my own age who both had earrings. And after drinking one or two glasses of white wine too many, I said, ‘Why shouldn’t I have an earring?’”

But it turns out, nope, it was Harrison Ford.

Oh OK, so *I’m* the weird one for thinking this is a totally natural way to dance with your sister. Reminds me of my li’l sis and I during the dollar dance at my wedding.

Calm down, haters.