My cousin was involved in this debauchery. We are a classy, well put together bunch us Shanes.

Attention denizens: the iPhone has been unlocked and can now be used on networks such as T-Mobile and many foreign networks though damn it to hell I still think it doesn’t work on Verizon.

Bastards.

But anyway, the phone has been hacked or to make it seem less dangerous, unlocked. Big news which means one of two things - Apple opens up the iPhone to other networks soon than it was expecting (if it was even expecting to do so) thus kind of fucking AT&T (’cause their network’s garbage anyway) or Apple quickly mounting large scale security revamps to prevent the unlock software from working. Either way, pretty big time.

In-laws encouraging people not to buy albums of said rocker who is married to their son, new news. Isn’t the story supposed to be that the parents just want to live off the riches of the younger generations and don’t care what they do as long as they’re cashing in on their cash cow (interestingly enough I believe that the phrase cash cow was used in last night’s Weeds with hilarious results). From what I remember about Elvis and Johnny Cash (note: remember means this is complete hearsay or I learned it from some sort of semi-fictionalization of their stories with famous actors), people told them to lay off the drugs but never told the fans to lay off their records. The father-in-law must be some sort of economist because he’s basically asking the fans for economic sanctions against Amy Winehouse (seriously, with a name like Winehouse who isn’t an alocholic?). He’s attacking the supply side (I believe). Anyway, good stuff.

Walking across Times Square today I noticed definitive proof that New York City is actually running faster than the rest of the world. On the corner of 43rd and Broadway (or is that 7th - anyway, on 43rd in Times Square, Northeast corner), there are the world clocks. Digital clocks that show the time in Times Square, Tokyo, London, and I believe Paris or something like that, maybe Milan, could be more, I don’t know. Point being, this morning I was shocked to see that while every other clock listed the time as {X Hour}:55, Times Square was listed at 8:56. NEW YORK CITY IS MOVING ONE MINUTE FASTER THAN THE REST OF THE WORLD! AMAZING!

This despite the fact that Americans are as fat as ever.

Learn something new everyday, right?  So this weekend I did my first keg stand and this morning I saw my first harelip.  Now the harelip is an interesting phenomena (as is the keg stand for that matter).  It’s constantly made fun of in cartoons where it is usually heavily exaggerating, or at least now I have to assume it is.  Maybe this guy just had a minor harelip, but while obviously noticeable, I didn’t feel like it made the guy grotesque.  Mildly deformed, yes.  Vomitacious to look at, no.

So that’s what I learned today.

Just stumbled across this video that is apparently of a custom Mario level where you only can win if you don’t move. Like it’s perfectly set up. Check it out. If that’s real it’s pretty cool.

And also a complete utter waste of time to create.

There’s a lot of jokes I could tell about this one. I know that sounds surprising. Who tells jokes about a dude dieing in a car crash? Well, when that dude is Eddie Griffin (in, not ith), there are, unfortunately, a multitude of jokes you could tell. Don’t worry, they’re all distasteful so I won’t sully your ears with them, but lets just say he’s had some trouble driving before (read: drunk driving crash while he was watching porn on his in-dash dvd player and masturbating) and also, crashed into a train. A train. Ouch.

The man was a talent, no doubt, and I always enjoyed picking him in the late rounds of my fantasy NBA 2k7 drafts so I could frustrate my cousin with his somewhat inexplicable shot blocking prowess and his often strange ability to hit three pointers, but the man had some troubles to say the least. The toxicology report hasn’t come back yet, but I’m guessing something was involved. You don’t just decide to drive past a barrier of a train (though admit it, you’ve thought of going through those things at some point - I mean the train never really seems to come and often comes at a slow pace - am I right? *Crickets*), but either way, tragedy strikes again in the world of talented athletes.

When I first saw the headline that Simon Cowell was quitting American Idol, I was blissful. I think that show and the culture it has spawned are the absolute dregs of society and the entertainment industry. So, the sooner its gone the better. Unfortunately, it seems that soon is three years and that the show might continue without him. Good god when will it stop? Are any of these people getting famous anymore? Is there anything beyond shtick to all of this? Am I the only one that finds this all kind of vomitizing? (Interesting note: vomitizing - clearly not a word - but spell check on Firefox suggests unappetizing which shares few of the same letters but a similar concept - Computers! They’re smart!)

So now I have to suffer through three more years of this crap and its endless spinoffs and Hasselhoffs. Big question: how in the fuck is Hasselhoff a judge of talent? This guy:

What a mess. I’m sure you all heard about the seven alarm fire down at the WTC site yesterday. I saw it briefly on the news while I was flying in (go Jet Blue) and it seriously scared me a little (especially after our pilot made a joke about crashing upon landing - are New Yorkers the only ones where there’s an awkward silence followed by nervous laughter when someone makes even a slight remark about crashing a plane? Do other passengers roll over with laughter?), but more I was just thinking, “My god, it’s a mess down there.” I kind of knew that already being a New Yorker and being the son of an architecture teacher. These are the types of things we talk about at the dinner table (failures of design, not fires). But now maybe everyone else will realize just what a disaster zone Ground Zero is. (Side note: I don’t know why, I dislike the term “ground zero”) For all the incredible amounts of money and supposed time we’re putting into that area, it is a complete and utter mess.

After the jump, Xzibit lyrics. (more…)

Back again with some renegade masters or some such thing.  Sorry for the gap the size of the space between Michael Strahan’s (By the way, why’s he holding out?  Didn’t his wife just basically rob him in a divorce?) two front teeth between postings.  I’ve been busy with various important things (vacation) and other less important things (work).  So I’m back here with a boss out of town for about three weeks now and me going to be supremely bored.  Hopefully I’ll get some good creative things done and not just some good creative drinking.