two-twenty

bite the pillow sham, bitch • post/haste

In reading today's Newsweek article on Martha Stewart's stay in the joint, two-twenty learned what gay men who are addicted to HBO's penitentiary drama "OZ" already know: prison sex is hott!

We pulled a few choice quotes for you:

"We went to lean against the visiting-room wall for a modified version of the yoga pose called 'downward-facing dog', from which she seamlessly moved into a headstand."
- Martha Stewart Living editor Margaret Roach

"The fact is, the American public loves a great come... And her story is even more compelling now.""
- NBC TV chief Jeff Zucker

Okay, fine, "comeback". He said "comeback."

Martha Breaks Out | Newsweek on msnbc.com

best. correction. ever. • post/haste

Spotted on page 2 of today's NY Times Sunday Styles section:

Correction
An article last Sunday about sororities at Harvard characterized Daedalus erroneously. It is not a campus organization, and not all-male. It is a pub in Cambridge, Mass.

Call us crazy, but once you get past the whole "it's not a campus organization" part, do you have to rub salt in your own wound with the "not all-male" admission as well? Maybe it's cathartic, like that time in 10th grade when you didn't feel entirely right with the Lord after confessing to your parents that you spent the weekend not, in fact, at a church group retreat but rather at a three-day rave, so you came clean about having lost your virginity to a ketamine dealer, too. One would have thought you'd learned your lesson after that fiasco...

Corrections: For the Record | NY Times
For Some Women at Harvard, Greek Is a Scream | NY Times

planned obsolescence, part i: iBuy therefore iAm • post/haste

Remember, like, over a year ago when everyone realized that iPod batteries were neither replacable nor designed to be particulary long lasting? We do, cause we wrote about it. And you do, because, well, everyone did!

Well, in typical mainstream newscycle fashion, New York's CBS Channel 2 just discovered the game, and they are shocked! Shocked, I tell you! So much so that they have made Apple a target of their "Shame On You!" series, hosted by Arnold Diaz (we have to point out here that the guy is kind of creepy looking - we'll give good odds that if you said the words "schiesse video" to him, you wouldn't get a blank stare in return. Kidding!)

image from www.cbsnewyork.com

The gyst is that Apple plans for the batteries to die after about 18 months, and plans for you to just go out and buy a new iPod rather than deal with the hassle of sending it back to them and paying $99 for a replacement battery. Worse, it turns out if you send yours back you will not get yours back- you will get someone else's crappy refurbished iPod in return, and lose all of your music. The story implied that you might even get an older generation iPod as a replacement.

For all of those reasons and more, Apple has joined the sad company of the NYPD, school bullying, and stealing money from a baby in Arnold Diaz's Hall of Shame.

shame, shame, shame!

Incidentally, the story featured the Neistat Brothers, whose iFilm (made on an iMac) "iPod's Dirty Secret" we linked to in our above-mentioned post in early 2004.

The good news: we learned that there are now service professionals dedicated to preserving our beloved iPods- at sites like iPod Mechanic and iPod Parts Center you can buy replacement batteries starting at under $30, and even have them installed. And there's always eBay.

But you probably already knew that.

The "Shame On You!" video clip is now up on CBS 2's homepage, here.

Shame on You! | cbsnewyork.com

planned obsolescence, part ii: darwinism at work • post/haste

This is too much. During our morning perusal of the gawker media empire today, we learned from the nattering wonkette that FOX news talking head Sean Hannity has started a conservative dating service on his website, called "Hannidate". Faster than you can say "double click", we were there.

Below are some sample pics with excerpts from the personal ads. One of them's a fake. Can you spot it?

Krista

I love this country and I support our President. I saw him three times this past year, twice on the campaign trail and once at the inauguration. I cried when Reagan died...one of my favorite books is "I love you, Ronnie"…

Mark

I am a 49 year old truck driver. Divorced… looking for a LADY, 45 to 55 years old, no tatoos, no body piercings except ears, but most importantly NOT LIBERAL… [caps his]

David

I'm 41 and have never been married. I work in Customer Service in Lansing, Michigan. I also have a background working in computer information services… My musical tastes are rather eclectic, basically anything except hip hop.

Elaine

I think Jeff Gannon is hot, and I’m not afraid to say it! His politics are so… tumescent. So what if he likes dudes… I’m open to, well, the possibilities, Jeff… wink!

Susan

I am 55 and live in a little house in the woods with my 2 cats.

Don't feel bad, we can't spot the fake one either, and we wrote the damn thing. Below is what appears to be the most viewed, or at leat one of the most viewed, profiles (we didn't check every page - even we don't have that much spare time on our hands). Draw your own conclusions:

Alayna

Me: I'm 25, Christian and Republican… I'm currently learning how to like reading…You: Must enjoy long walks on the beach, candlelit dinners, and cozy evenings with a smoldering fire in the fireplace... I'm only teasing... or am I!? :) … I'm a firm believer that the man is the head of the household, so I'm very traditional, and as a strong woman, would need an even stronger man... He must demonstrate the following qualities in no particular order: intelligence, good judgment, leadership, honesty, responsibility, sensitivity, tenderness, excitement, romance, good humor, even temperament, creativity, cleaning abilities, cooking abilities, and telepathy (for when I'm mad at him). (* List of character qualities may increase without notice).
Viewed: 2297 times.

Hannidate | Hannity.com
Sean Hannity: One Anchor To Do Them All | wonkette

just zissou it | alex • post/haste

A craigslist poster in Seattle wants you to know that yeah, he bought Team Zissou Adidas, but don’t worry, he “gets it”:

Post-Modern Tragedy

Today is the day when the historians(*1) will report me as turning from a "kinda hip guy" to "hipster trash".
For my Team Zissou Adidas have come in. I don't care what they say(*2). I think the shoes have a certain je ne sais quoi(*3).
I shall wear them at home. I shall wear them at work. I shall wear them walking. Talking. Sitting. Standing. (*4)

You will notice that the above text is seeded with numbered asterisks. These serve a double purpose: they indicate that the poster has read David Foster Wallace, and also refer to “Tangents” the poster added beneath the main text, about his barely-suppressed inward desire to be “hip” (as he puts it) and his engorged outward desire to repudiate any suggestion that he might appear in any way beholden to the concept of “hipness”. Well, that’s what the original “Tangents” seemed to be about anyway. They were all lies. We corrected them for you:

* Tangent 1: Sometimes when I say “history” instead of “herstory” my girlfriend beats me. Woman-friend! I mean partner! I mean—Oww!
* Tangent 2: Mind starts playing, "I don't care (*A) what they say anymore this my life. Go ahead with your own life, leave me alone". Thoughts of Forrest Gump and Honey I Shrunk The Kids: The TV Show. (*B)
* Sub-Tangent A to Tangent 2: Well, I mean, I care enough to post about it to craigslist, but not an iota more than that!
* Sub-Tangent B to Tangent 2: This “Tangent” is unedited simply because there is nothing more cruel or incriminating than the fact that I just referenced Billy Joel, “Forrest Gump”, and “Honey I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show”(*i) within the framework of “hipness”.
* Sub-Sub-Tangent i to Sub-Tangent B: Must remember-- “Three’s Company”: hip. “Small Wonder”: hip! “Benson”: v. v. hip! “Honey I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show”: NOT hip!
* Tangent 3: My parents paid an extraordinary amount for my education and all I have to show for it is one French phrase, a somewhat muddled understanding of the concepts of “Post-Modern” and “Tragedy”, genital herpes, and a really scratched up copy of Pearl Jam’s “Ten”.
* Tangent 4: These are all euphemisms for masturbating.

Today’s lesson: no amount of pre-emptive irony can protect you from your own glorious bellyflop across the line separating clever from stupid. Today’s sub-lesson: beware the well-intentioned post to craigslist-- it has been the undoing of greater men than you! Ow! And women! Oww!

Side Note: In case you were wondering, after many discussions, arguments and near fistfights I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that “The Life Aquatic” is not a good movie. A truly enjoyable theater experience, to be sure, because Wes Anderson is very smart, clever, visually and conceptually inventive, has good taste in music and most assuredly shares a common cultural history with me. However, because this film lacked the framework of strong characters or even a compelling story to hang all of this talent from, it lapsed into a pastiche of amusing caricatures and sketches. Hopefully his next project will mark a return to the top-notch sense of story and character that marked “Rushmore” and "Tenenbaums".

In keeping with the lateral thinking theme of this post, a Side Note to Side Note: “The Life Aquatic” made me wonder if Wes Anderson isn’t in danger of becoming the iPod of directors: we idolize his form and drool slavishly at the altar of his iconic coolness, but sooner or later, as our batteries die and our screens go dead, we are forced to ask: does the substance truly live up to the style? Or, perhaps, is the style enough for us?

(Full disclosure: I adore Wes Anderson. And my iPod. And David Foster Wallace! So shoot me.)

Post-Modern Tragedy | craiglist.org (via gawker)

a blemish on the record • post/haste

From the "Biting the Hand that Feeds You" department: FOX is set to broadcast a "special" exposing celbrities as they are, as opposed to as their publicists -- and you! Yes, you!! -- want them to be. Hey, if it works on the web, it can work on FOX, aah'ight, dawgg?

Fox to air 'Stars Without Makeup' | realitytvworld

big ups and beat downs: gawker edition • post/haste

Is there irony in an irregularly updated and only debatably clever website passing judgment on one of the most successful web logs, like, evah? That is a question that can only be answered by a question: is there irony in an Alanis Morisette song? Regardless, because we care, a few Big Ups and Beat Downs directed at blogospheric behemoth Gawker Media:

1. Big Ups to Flintlock Pistol for his new position as time keeping drum beater on the corporate viking slave ship that is Gawker Media. Keep making us WASPs look good!

2. Related News: Big Ups to former slave driving drum beater and former former Gawker editor Ckhouirrye on his gig as Editor of Sorts at the most famous non-existent magazine ever. Well, maybe the second most famous. After "American Bitch".

3. Big Ups to Gawker Media and lifehacker for their $25,000 per month advertising sponsorship agreement with Sony. Says AdAge: "...media pros are buzzing about whether the Sony-Gawker pricing begins to define buys on high-profile blogs going forward."

4. Related News: A mild Beat Down comes from the same above-linked AdAge article: "...two of Mr. Denton's latest blog launches were flops. Kinja.com, which was about weird stuff on the Web, and Kitaku.com, which was for an audience of video-game freaks..." It's always sad when weird freaky stuff doesn't catch on.

5. Big Ups to Gawker.com for exposing the lurid, kinky, downright dirty side of what was supposed to be the cleanest Super Bowl ever: Fox and U.S. troops love football and digital penetration of the anus. What's that? You don't get it? Well, see, the "shocker" is... Ummm, Urban Dictionary? Can you field this one? We're no prudes, but double penetration has a way of making even interracial semi-topless canoodling look tame.

6. Lastly, we are forced by circumstances beyond our control to give a stern Beat Down to Gawker.com. Jessica, Jessica, Jessica. We are certain that you are a very nice person. But lady, you just plain ain't been funny lately. Are you sure you have little enough to lose to be doing this? Do you need inspiration? Hott tip: Monkeys are always funny!