Que es?
The Weblog of Brett Singer. Bringing the world what it needs most - a blog.

Note: Sorry about all of the 'hot deals' entries (someone referred to this blog as CorporateShill.com).
The deals and things are being fed into Multineedia.com. We will soon move the deals category over to Multineedia so you don't have to read it, and we apologize for any inconvenience.

Tacky?

This is a DVD that ABC is selling called "Peter Jennings: Reporter". Is that tacky? Or just good business? Both?

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Gawker on Radar

Gawker gets an earful (inboxful?) from Radar about their claims of sold-out newsstands across the country. As they say:

We genuinely appreciate Blattman’s lesson on magazine distribution. She makes some very good points. (And we won’t bother pointing out that they’re somewhat irrelevant, as Maer didn’t tell WWD, “We sold out at some newsstands in New York.” He said, “We’re sold out all over the country.” The “we’re” — we are, uncontracted — suggests an ongoing state of affairs, not a question of restocking.)

Not to overstate the importance of all this, but what Gawker is doing (intentionally or not) is not putting up with a media culture that allows people like Maer Roshan to lie freely and without consequences. Maybe it doesn't matter: they have audited circulation, presumably, and if you lie about that, there are (sometimes) consequences. But the thing is, THEY'RE RIGHT, Radar's editor in chief is lying through his teeth. They also point to this stupid blog, which they claim is written by Radar’s PR guy, Drew Kerr. How'd they find out who the blog belonged to? A little site called Register.com, perhaps you've heard of it. So who's doing the real reporting, people? The "snarky" web site (Gawker), or the slick, glossy, heavily funded, overhyped, overstocked magazine (Radar)? Hmpf.

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Friendster Games

Maybe I'm wrong, but I bet this is a sign that Friendster is not long for this world.

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New blog discovery - Screenhead

Did you know that when we peed this morning there were ads in it? From here.

What's that? Another blog from Nick Denton and his ever-expanding pile o' blogs, Gawker Media. Three of those blogs made Time's 50 coolest websites, which probably makes them less cool, but does mean that Denton is doing something right.

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The Real War of the Worlds - Orson's version

The Old Time Radio version of The War of the Worlds. The hell with Tom Cruise.

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Ain't It Cool News FF Review

This is pretty amusing.

And this may be the nerdiest animated gif ever.

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Holy Freakshow, Batman

So much great stuff on the net.

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Moogfest

If I ever left my house at night, I would go to this. More here, and there's a documentary, 'natch.

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Ain't It Cool News Star Wars review

Harry Knowles' review of the new Star Wars movie has a priceless opening line:

I have watched my last new STAR WARS film.

O, the profundity of it all!

Yes, I'm going tomorrow. Bite me.

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HHG2G Radio Shows
Only as streams, annoyingly, but the links do work so far.

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Don't Panic
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy is coming out next month. I missed that somehow. The trailer looks... not awful. I'll see it anyway, but I hope it's good.

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Snow White and the (how many can we afford?) Dwarves
Costs force Snow White to cut dwarf numbers - hilarious.

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Lucas Say: What Not To Do

Lucas points out (see 'What not to do:') that blogging about the fact that you are downloading unauthorized content is not very bright. I remember when the Pope of Pot, aka Michael Cesa (here's a link, he was around in NYC in the 1980's) had a weed delivery service and he advertised the phone number - 1(800)WANT-POT - in the newspaper. Howard Stern called him on the air and talked to him about it. He (the Pope) was quite open, honest, and brazen about what he was doing. Only then did the cops come and get him - by calling the number and setting up a sting operation. Let that be a lesson to all of you!

This is somewhat related to my post about DivX DVD players being the bongs of consumer electronics. What I meant by that was that you have a product that is primarily used for viewing unauthorized content, something that the MPAA is, in a way, promoting by suing everyone. The RIAA did the same thing - huge numbers of people first heard about MP3's when they sued RIO over the first MP3 player.

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Random Cartoons from the New Yorker

Click this link and refresh the page to see a different New Yorker cartoon each time.

On my list of presents I'd like to get: The Complete New Yorker Cartoons on CD-ROM.

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Boondocks

The Boondocks are in the holiday spirit.

This one was good too.

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Department of Too Many Movies

Here's a movie that stars Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr. Come on. How could you not want to see it? Also features Roman Polanski, Richard Attenborough, and Raquel Welch as, I shit you not, 'Priestess of the Whip'. Polanski is 'Solitary drinker'. There is a character named 'Laurence Faggot'. Come ON! This is a must-see!

Part of the problem (and there are many problems with this) inherent in the deluge of media choices that now assails us is that the old stuff, especially nonsense like this, will get forgotten. Sure, the "classics" will always be remembered (at least for awhile), but there's tons of great stuff that will slip through the cracks. Of course, it will all be AVAILABLE on DVD, but who will know to even look for it? I found this dopey flick by noodling around on imdb, and I went to imdb because I was curious who directed the upcoming Al Pacino Merchant of Venice (it's , if anybody's interested. He directed Il Postino, another movie I've never seen). Bottom line: there are only so many hours in a day, and only a few of them (some days, none) will be dedicated to viewing entertainment product. Do we really think that My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss (which is, by the way, fairly amusing) is really better than The Magic Christian?

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$5K for a Music Video? Eat me.
Yellow and iFilm wanna give you $5000 for making them a video. Maybe I'm wrong, but don't directors alone usually get $500,000 or something? At least $50,000. Maybe I'm out of touch. The thing about these contests is that while you do get exposure, the band gets a cheapo video, probably very well-produced. Oh well. Gotta go, I need to work on my entry.

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Leadbelly in the Daily News
Good article about Leadbelly in the Daily News today. Well-written and informative. David Hinckley is an interesting writer in a strange place (that is, a NYC tabloid).

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Lindsay Lohan's new video
I don't care much, but when Webjay comes back online, I'll post this in the videos playlist.

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MATRIX SUX - just ask your DVD player
The Ultimate Matrix Collection (The Matrix / Reloaded / Revolutions / Revisited / The Animatrix) on DVD has a commentary track by critics who hated the movie. Here's the review from IGN.com in the case the NY Post link goes dead. I have to give the goofball Wachowski Brothers some credit, it shows a certain sense of humor to put something like that on your DVD.

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Lil' Pimp is Bzack
Lil' Pimp, a film made entirely in Flash (the first one ever) that was first a web-based toon, is now being released after being shelved by THE MAN. When reached for comment, THE MAN said he was displeased.

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Free Animation from Archive.org
SIGGRAPH Electronic Theatre, 119 animations.

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Legal Torrents
From Filesoup.

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Noker
Phil Mushnick should go back to Sports full-time, but in this case, his moralizing garbage is correct. Kids (and adults) are gambling more, and televised poker is part of it.

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New Yorker Cartoon
I guess we'll all have to vote a little bit harder next time.

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Lone Ranger radio script
Radio Script for The Lone Ranger, circa 1941. I was going to post this to del.icio.us, but it 503'd me.

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Movies movies everywhere

It occurs to me that the ability to make a movie with nothing but a DV camcorder will not lead to a boom in films by amateurs auteurs so much as it will lead to every company putting movies on the web. Think about it: if it costs 1/100th of what it used to cost to make a commercial and put it on your web site (as opposed to a commercial to air on television), why wouldn't you do it? Amazon has started Amazon Theater, which currently has a film starring Minnie Driver. Future shorts include something directed by Tony Scott. These people don't work cheap, but the production costs have to be much, much lower than they would be if the films were to be aired in a theater. And these aren't even commercials, at least not the usual 30 second variety. They're 'short films'. So why doesn't everybody do this? I'm speaking from the point of view of a corporation; I'm not saying every company SHOULD do it, but they probably will.

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What you don't want for your children
From today's Soup To Nutz comic strip.

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TNT Wants To Make You A Star! (and make a fool of you in the process)

Do You Have
What It Takes To Be A Star?

Famous for 15 minutes? Please. Embarrassed for at least an hour.

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captain takei

bs
this is brilliant:
http://www.georgetakei.com/sound-bite.ram
it's george talking about his upcoming "tell-all" about star trek. the rest of his site is good too:
http://www.georgetakei.com/
note that he probably doesn't think he's being funny. listen for him talking about "captain sulu of the starship excelsior" - something that appeared in a star trek for about a minute and a half. sulu got a promotion! oy.
come on, george: we all know that your best work was on the simpsons:
http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Studio/7543/t_s_sounds.html#akira
http://members.xoom.com/azaria1/theorder.wav
http://members.xoom.com/azaria1/commercial.wav
http://headworks.net/simpsons/photo/Images/Pictures/akiraticked.gif
is he annoying? you decide:
http://www.amiannoyingornot.com/(wnfzthmwa5juwx55p5xggy55)/view.aspx?ID=3132
and... here's the book!
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671890093/brettsingeassocl

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doom movie

bs
this can't be a good idea:
http://www.computergaming.com/article2/0,4364,1398587,00.asp

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creme de la cremaster

bs
http://www.guggenheim.org/barney/index.html
http://www.filmforum.com/cremaster.html
this is something that seems to be fascinating to everyone i know, including me. we all found it on our own. not that it's a secret, but we all seem to have heard about this in our own way, as opposed to people telling each other about it. i usually don't like this sort of thing, but something about it all - maybe it's just so audacious and bizarre. not sure. still haven't seen it.

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easy money?

bs
http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/etc/19655647.html

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cremater reminder

bs
matthew barney's thing at the guggenheim closes on june 11. i haven't gone, i'm planning on going, it looks cool. go.

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pirates, sea dogs, whatever disney, just gimme yer money

bs
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/rpg/piratesofthecaribbean/preview_6028322.html
this could start a trend. instead of developing content on their own, large entertainment megapolises (that's not a word) such as disney can just buy an existing product outright. it sounds like changes were/are being made, but it's still an existing product being picked up by a big-ass company to be used to promote something else (in this case a movie based on an amusement park ride). i guess disney did so well with the country bears that it figured it would keep going. mark my words - space mountain, the musical.
what other video games could be used for this? maybe pong could be licensed for a tennis movie? or quake for the latest jean claude van dammie flick? the possibilities are seemingly endless.

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comic book people wanted

bs
http://www.marvel.com/epic/index.htm?flash=no
marvel is publishing a line of comics that you submit stories for. or something like that. i think it just means that they'll read what you send in and then consider publishing it. they even post a script template - neat.
found it on slashdot:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/21/116256&mode=thread&tid=192&tid=98
which is really much too interesting for it's own good.

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Sex-No, Tech-TV

bs
http://www.techtv.com/tvshows/story/0,23350,3413873,00.html
somebody finally did a show about cyberporn. can't wait.

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