Argggggh, David Chase!

In case you've been under a rock, The Sopranos finale was tonight. Luckily my sis-in-law Simone has the Hibbo, so I could watch it. Unfortunately, the show is written by David Chase, a complete wanker, who apparently decided that writers shouldn't, ya know, tie up loose ends in the plot and provide viewers with a sense of resolution. No, he had to get all abstract on us and present a completely ridiculous non-ending that allows the show to end without any of the big questions being answered.

I know writers and directors like to leave some questions unanswered, but a plot-driven show like this needs an ending. Not answering the big question of whether or not Tony was killed isn't creative or abstract... it's gutless and limp, and admits to viewers that the show's producer has lost all passion for the project. He wanted to kill off the show but apparently lacks the guts to kill of its hero.

U.S National Team update

Since I know you're all dying for info and commentary on the U.S. soccer team's 4-1 victory over China yesterday, here ya go.

People don't just visit, they move out here

Those are the words of Jermaine Dupri in the classic "Welcome to Atlanta" remix. Well, in our case, that's definitely true. Thing are moving forward quickly for Di and I. I spent my first week at my new job, learning about the place and getting settled in.

This new job is at a much smaller company than anywhere else I've ever worked and there are a lot of things different about it. For instance, the president of the company has his own blog and we're all expected to read it first thing in the morning. It's actually kind of a good way for him to let everyone know what he's thinking. We also post comments on the blog that sorta lay out a few of the things we'll be working that day.

For those who don't know, my job involves editing and writing for a monthly business newspaper/magazine. It's focused on a county in the Atlanta area, which happens to be one of, if not THE most booming parts of the region. It's nice because the paper is only three years old, which means the president wants me to look at ways of improving the product and how we can branch out, tighten up the print edition and just take advantage of new ideas and a fresh perspective. It's very cool. The president, who hired me, seems to have a very strong personality and lots of charisma. It's definitely not the kind of job where he says one thing and you do another. His word is gospel, but he's obviously very willing to listen to his employees, compliment them and do nice things for them. I think the arrangement will work very well.

Perhaps the biggest cloud hanging over my head, though, is on the housing front. I'm staying with Di's sister right now who's extremely gracious for having me, but our plan is to buy a condo down here this summer and get moved in sometime next month. It should be exciting. Of course, it's also incredibly stressful. We're tying to stay within our budget and avoid paying a big mortgage on our first home. Still, it should be enough for us to get a small 2-bedroom townhouse in a decent neighborhood. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

Making money off Cameroonian typos

Sometimes I think this interwebs thing is less a reflection of the human world than some kind of animal kingdom: there are the kings of the jungle (Amazon, YouTube, eBay, etc.) and then there are the bottom feeders (the guys who junk up the web and just hope you're dumb enough to find yourself on a crappy ad-choked faux website).

Kevin Ham is the latter. He's made millions of dollars by buying up crappy domain names in the hope that enough stupid people will just type random names into the URL window on their browsers. And they do.

And when they do, guys like Ham are there to show you millions of useless text ads, and hey, maybe you're gullible to actually click through some of them. They actually make a nice living building completely pointless websites (ok, that's half the internet, but still...).

Here's an awesome profile of the "domainers." I especially like how they've worked out an arrangement with the Cameroonian government to steer all traffic to their pages when people accidentally mis-type ".com."

The plan is in motion

Wow. What a summer this is shaping up to be. It turns out I'll be moving down to Atlanta in about a week from now. I landed a job last Friday at a small publishing and marketing firm that produces a monthly business magazine in one of Atlanta's more booming suburban counties.

I've long wanted to find a job that would combine the aspects of the media business I like most: high-quality journalism and innovative use of technology. I spent about two hours meeting with my future boss last week and I feel like it's the kind of place that will take advantage of my skills and creativity a little more than where I'm at now.

So I'm heading down south over the holiday weekend. I'll be back up north for a couple of weddings next month. Then hopefully by July Dionne and I can find a condo to buy. So far we're blown away by how cheap real estate is.

Eating on $21 a week

Luckily this isn't the latest Rachel Ray show. It's actually a sort of "experiment" by two members of congress to spend only $21 per week on food. That's the amount the typical food stamp recipient has. And well, you can see from their blog that stretching $21 is NOT easy. Yikes.

Welcome to Atlanta

We stand at the vanguard of time and the precipice of history (I feel like Dwight giving his Il Duce speech on "The Office"). Wow. We've got a lot going on here in the biggest little state. It's looking more and more like the whole migration south could be happening before we know it. In honor of my soon-to-be new home, here are some amazingly cool graffiti-inspired sneakers that pay homage to Atlanta:

Man killed in dance-off

Instead of assigning reporters to cover the babysitting grandma beat, why can't they put them where they're really needed: Like giving us more information about how a 48-year-old Connecticut man died in a parking lot dance-off.

I feel like this AP story leaves too many questions unanswered. Why was everyone laughing at him? What song was he dancing to? Is this an impromptu dance-off or is it a regularly scheduled affair? What exact move was he trying to pull off? And what is a 48-year-old man doing in a dance off anyway?

I say cut the grandma babysitter story and give about 20 inches of newspaper column to the best dance-off reporter you have available. C'mon!

Another ridiculous trend story

The NY Times hits us with yet another made-up trend story today. Now the latest fake fad is "The Incredible Flying Granny Nanny." The gist is that there is this new breed of grandparents who fly around the country on a weekly basis to babysit the grandkids.

The only problem is that the reporter doesn't have any hard evidence of this supposed trend other than some anecdotal evidence (almost always culled from the upper crust social circle of the New York media elite).

Here's a tip for readers... If you suspect a bogus trend story look for sentences like these from the "Flying Granny Nanny" story:

There are no figures on how many grandparents go to extremes, because they can afford to, to care for their children’s children.

These stories always have a sentence about how there are no figures or statistics to measure whatever the supposed trend is. Journalists shouldn't be slaves to statistics, but that doesn't mean they should just look at a few well-off people around them and pronounce all their indulgences as society-wide trends.

A pizza for the homeless

A convicted murderer in Tennessee is requesting that prison officials deliver a pizza to a homeless man in lieu of his last meal. State officals are refusing on the absurd grounds that it would be a burden on taxpayers (because, you know, getting a pizza delivered to a homeless shelter would cost millions of dollars).

It doesn't stop there, though. The convict's original trial was apparently tainted by a lying witness and questionable ballistics evidence. His lawyer is saying the 1981 shooting of a Memphis police officer may have been a friendly fire incident, presumably from another cop at the scene.

And that's not all: Tennessee can't even prove to the higher courts that its procedure for lethal injections doesn' constitute cruel and unusual punishment. What a disgraceful story.

Noah's Ark gets all wiki-fied

A group of non-profits are funding a huge project called the Encyclopedia of Life, which will catalog the Earth's 1.8 million known living species. I'm kind of surprised Wikipedia hasn't done it already, but apparently it's not exactly a walk around the park... you need a lot of people to help you.

Yes, Paris Hilton actually has fans

And as you might have guessed, they're not the brightest lot the world has ever seen. Here's a letter one of them wrote to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pleading for our favorite hotel heiress's pardon:

To: The Honorable Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger:

Let me first begin by saying that I grew up as a child enjoying all of your wonderful films. You really are the truly great action hero for our time. You are doing a great job in the great state of California.

I would like to bring a matter to your attention that you may or may not already be aware of due to the excessive media coverage this matter has received recently:

Paris Whitney Hilton is 26 year old American celebrity and socialite. She is an heiress to a share of the Hilton Hotel fortune, as well as to the real estate fortune of her father Richard Hilton. She provides hope for young people all over the U.S. and the world. She provides beauty and excitement to (most of) our otherwise mundane lives. Hilton is notable for her leading roles on the FOX reality series The Simple Life and in the remake of the Vincent Price horror classic “House of Wax”. In addition to her work as an actress, she has achieved some recognition as a model, celebrity spokesperson, singer, and writer.

As most of America now knows, Ms. Hilton was just charged in a Los Angeles court with DUI and sentenced to 45 days in Century Regional Detention Facility in California beginning on or before June 5, 2007.

We, the American public who support Paris, are shocked, dismayed and appalled by how Paris has been the person to be used as an example that Drunk Driving is wrong. I do not support drunk driving or condone a person being spared from DUI charges. Paris should have been sober. But she shouldn’t go to jail, either. As depicted on Friday night’s episode “Nancy Grace” on Headline News (May 4, 2007), countless celebrities have been “slapped on the wrist” for similar incidents recently. Nick Nolte, Mel Gibson, Tracy Morgan, Wynonna Judd, to name a few, were arrested and never did a day in jail after their initial arrests for drunk driving /DUI /DWI charges. Rappers Busta Rhymes and Eve still walk free after both being arrested for the same charges as Ms. Hilton just this past week.

Singer/actress Brandy Norwood’s California Highway accident, although no proof of DUI was evidenced in her accident, resulted in the death of a young wife and mother in California, yet Brandy walks free as of today, never doing any time and a woman is now dead possibly due to her reckless driving.

Yet, Paris Hilton did not hurt, injure, or kill anyone or anything, and yet she must do jail time.

This letter, with all due respect to you, sir, is to ask you to please consider granting a pardon to Paris Hilton for her mistake, or at the very least to advocate for a pardon to be given to Ms. Hilton. Please allow her to her return to her career and life. Everyone makes mistakes. She didn’t hurt or kill anyone, and she has learned her lesson. She is sincere, apologetic, and full of regret for her actions as she explained tearfully to the Judge handling her case in court yesterday. She is distraught and understandably afraid to enter the prison system.

Please save Paris from ending up at the Century Regional Detention Facility in California.

I urge you to think about the welfare of this young woman who will be placed into a facility with murderers, rapists, people who have committed assault, battery, larceny, etc. Paris has made a mortal error and deserves a second chance like so many others in our great nation have been served with after a mistake they have made. In my humble opinion, if the late Former President Gerald Ford could find it in his heart to pardon the late Former President Richard Nixon after his mistake(s), we as compassionate human beings can undeniably support Paris Hilton being pardoned for her honest mistake as well.

I hope and expect that you will understand and please consider granting this unusual but important request in good faith to Ms. Paris Whitney Hilton.

More manifesto-y goodness

Here's the Cheap Art Manifesto, written by the Bread & Puppet Theater of Vermont in 1984. Enjoy.

Just say no

I got a memo in my inbox today at work from the human resources department. I opened it up and noticed.................. the entire letter was written in Comic Sans. Not just a heading or a contact number at the top of the page. The entire page was in Comic Sans, the retarded stepchild of typography. I know I touched on this before, but bear with me people: Comic Sans is ugly. Just because it has those faux-wacky squiggles and is included in the Microsoft system fonts does not mean it should be used for company-wide memos.

Which family members you can and can't marry

I've always wondered what the difference between second cousins and first cousins twice removed was.

Where have I been?

I've really been slacking lately... I know. Life has been a bit hectic lately. Mrs. T-L and I are starting to prepare ourselves for the big move to Atlanta. We still have three months to go here in Olde Neuwe England, but the trek south is imminent. Also, my job here in Boston has taken an interesting turn lately: My boss has me now doing some copy editing work instead of just archiving. It's all very exciting, but leaves me little time for blogging.

What I have been spending my precious time on is job hunting. Here's a particularly "interesting" job ad I stumbled upon today:

Do you like to spend your days bouncing off the walls with smart people? Do you have so many ideas that you oftentimes feel like sticking your head in a paint can and shaking it out on a blank canvas? Are you fabulous?

If you just thought to yourself, How did they know? then you may want to consider [name omitted to protect the guilty], the countrys [sic] largest and most experienced creative advertising agency of its kind, offering more than 30 years of service in retail and direct-response catalog services.

I am fabulous. Somebody give me a job! Wait, that's what fabulous means now? Oh, never mind.

Why job ads are horrible

It's been a big week for Mrs. T-L and I. We found out we'll eventually be moving to Atlanta, Georgia. As much as we love it here in New England, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity came up for her and we're now planning to move there sometime in the late summer.

I've already started looking for work down there, and as much fun as it can be imagining myself in different jobs, I sometimes wonder what people are thinking when they come up with some of these job listings.

For instance, I was looking at listing today for an editor position at a trade journal. The company publishes a paper products magazine. So not only do they want someone to do painstaking editing and journalism work, but they expect the applicant to be "familiar with the forest products industry" as well! Now, I don't know any lumberjacks personally, but my guess is that they're a lot frickin better at cutting down trees than paginating a centerspread in Quark XPress and then exporting it to a high-res PDF. The worst offenders of this type are medical journals/magazines/etc. If I have a medical degree or experience as a doctor, why on earth would I take a job as a lowly copy editor? I honestly think some of these corporate publication types really don't understand that journalists are paid to be generalists -- we can't be experts in every little topic under the sun, but we know when to ask more questions and what needs to be verified.

And there's this: A little while ago I happened to look at a job listing from a local TV news station. The job was for a news editor. I think the last line is just depressing: "News background a plus."

Yet another absurd NY Times trend story

Anyone familiar with the nitty-gritty of journalism can spot a crappy trend story from a mile away. It's a type of story that certain kinds of journalists can't help themselves from writing. Basically, they pick out a dubious fad that a small group of people (usually bourgeois Upper East Side types) are engaging in and pretend it's "the next big thing."

Today's egregious example of this is a story about the rise of facial yoga. As if yoga wasn't already ridiculous enough, participants in this new style are required to make maniacal expressions in the hopes of avoiding a costly face lift operation. Now, I've never experienced the transcendence that is face yoga, but I do know that any activity requiring this pose can't be good.

My-Time (aka craziest husband ever)

I guess the whole idea of contractual obligation is a good one -- people should be required to live up to their ends of bargains -- but sometimes, well, things don't go so well. Take the example of 33-year-old Travis Frey, henceforth known as The World's Biggest Scumbag (or TWBS), who drew up a "Contract of Wifely Expectations" using only his sociopathy and some horrendous font choices. Oh, and TWBS is (shockingly) facing charges of attempting to kidnap his wife.

One of my favorite sections deals with TWBS' concept of "My-Time" (note the apostrophe usage). My-Time deals with any time TWBS is "at home and alone as a family, from when you are to be naked until 12:00 AM, or for three hours, which ever is later."

This might not have helped TWBS' court case. But I'm no Alan Dershowitz, so I could be wrong.

The All-Name Team

Because we at T-L hosted the World Cup of Team Names recently, I decided to formally announce the roster of the official Tomorrow-Land All-Name Team. Basically, only the strangest, coolest and creepiest-named footballers of all time were nominated. I know the sticklers out there (on the Internet? No!) will point out that some of the names are actually nicknames, but I did try to stick to names that are used on team rosters, jerseys and in news reports. Here we go:

Manager:
Wolfgang Wolf (Germany) Our boy Wolfie gets to coach the team after his run as manager of German team VFL Wolfsburg.

The players:
Bismarck (Brazil) When he plays against France, things do not go well.
Climax Lawrence (India) Forget pulling a Beckham and naming your children based on where they were conceived. Climax's parents named him after the exact moment.
Creedence Cleerwater (Brazil) I can't believe CCR has fans in Brazil, but apparently it is so.
Digital Takawira (Zimbabwe)
Danny Invincible (Australia)
Dean Windass (England) Before you make fun of Dean Windass, know that he was recently sent off the field for grabbing another player by the testicles during an altercation.
Energy Murambadoro (Zimbabwe)
Fred (Brazil) Not Juninho. Not Rivaldo. Not even Robinho. Just Fred.
Gilles Yapi-Yapo (Ivory Coast) Last summer during the World Cup, the Irish commentator Tommy Smyth introduced him as "the delightfully named Yapi-Yapo." Double-Y gets bonus points for playing his club football at Young Boys in Switzerland.
Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink (Netherlands) Like a character straight out of dungeons and dragons.
Johnny Vegas (Peru)
Joseph Désiré Job (France)
Kaka (Brazil) Sometimes the whole Brazilian nicknaming thing goes horribly wrong....
Mozart (Brazil) But then other times it's just completely cool.
Naughty Mokoena (South Africa)
Norman Conquest (Australia) The Conquests owed it to us to name their son Norman.
Nigel Reo-Coker (England) Sounds like someone who wears those yellow-tinted sunglasses and makes monthly trips to Medellin.
Ruud Gullit (Netherlands)
Socrates (Brazil) Possibly the most intelligent professional athlete ever. Was a medical doctor who also drank and smoked throughout his career. How can you not have him on your team?
Titi Camara (Guinea) Muscle cars and a crude reference to breasts. This man was born to play in New Jersey.

But now we have to select the team captain. Two names stood out so far above everyone else that they have to be considered separately:

Bongo Christ
(Congo)

vs.

Johnny Moustache
(Seychelles)

OK, I confess, that's not actually a picture of Johnny Moustache. I just thought a French art film poster better captured the essential nature of Mr. Moustache. He does indeed exist, though. (He played in at least one 2000 World Cup qualifier for that world power Seychelles.)

Anyway, this is a tough call. Johnny Moustache is a name that has a certain star appeal -- as in, he could very well be an adult film star. Meanwhile, Bongo Christ brings centuries of African musical tradition to the venerable Christ family. Oh that Bongo! He always was the second-most-talented cousin!

In the end, myself and Wolfgang Wolf of Wolfsburg gave the captain's armband to Bongo Christ. Not only does he share a familial connection to our lord and savior, but he could lay down a mean funk rhythm for Earth, Wind and Fire (which, now that I think about it, could be the name of Brazil's next big star).