The Thought Police Could Be Inside Your Set

BlogPulse's no. 39 top link today is a story on Salon (you'll have to watch a brief ad if you click on it) about the federal gubbment getting ready to crack down on "offensive" or "inappropriate" things on cable TV. Historically, America's idea-nannies have only had justification to meddle in things that TV and radio broadcasters sent over the airwaves, because the electronic spectrum they use belongs to the people of this great nation, which station operators lease through their licenses. Now, for some reason, the FCC thinks it has the same jurisdiction over privately owned cable lines, paid for by subscribers. Top FCC officials are thinking of ways, Salon reports, to hold cable stations to the same standards as broadcasters, meaning the days might be numbered for the edgy but sometimes racy things cable can show. Bloggers aren't happy about this. "When are people like us going to stand up against the likes of a government who tries to mold us in its own cultural image, simply because it believes it has sufficient 'political capital?'" asks SpeakSpeak. Check out MediaGeek for a a pretty slippery slope: "If he is willing to censor material on subscriber services like cable and satellite that don't agree with his good tastes, one has to wonder how long it will be until he sets his sights on the Internet." And blogs.

Posted by Philip Ewing at 12:36 PM | Permalink

Category: On The Telly

Rrrring! Hello? Why, It's 50 Cent!

We don't count ourselves among the legions that Bill Gates and others have predicted will gobble up the "It" device of tomorrow — actually, it could be the device of Wednesday next — which technologists describe as a mobile phone that doubles as an mp3 player. But there are nonetheless lots of people out there excited about the iTunes-compatible phone that may (or may not) be unveiled at an Apple special event on Sept. 7. The professional geekoids who track such things have been theorizing about it for months as Apple and phone maker Motorola have repeatedly dragged their feet in unveiling the iPod Phone, or iPhone, or whatever i-Name they'll slap on it. ("After the multiple, seemingly endless delays getting this thing to market, a splashy press fest seems almost embarrassing," writes The Digital Music Weblog.) But the biggest evidence of an iTelephone may be in BlogPulse's no. 9 top link today, in which The Newspaper Of Record reports that the Apple event indeed will debut the iCommunicator. Maybe Apple and Motorola have cried wolf too many times, judging by the way some bloggers received this news: "Yawn," says this one, though at TPMCafe, of all places, at least one contributor says "the phone/iPod combo seems much more logical than the common phone/camera combo." Maybe. About as logical, anyway, as having a flash drive in your Swiss Army Knife.

Posted by Philip Ewing at 11:04 AM | Permalink

Category: The Gadget Scene

MSM, Meet The Web. Charmed, I'm Sure.

Bloggers, techno-futurists all, are excited by the promise of BlogPulse's no. 32 link today, in which the BBC announces it will begin broadcasting some of its TV shows on its website and make some "programmes" available for download. Just think: you could dial up the BBC on your browser and grab an episode of "Titty Bang Bang" — whatever that is and we swear we're not making it up, those crazy Brits — and watch it on your computer at your leisure. At first it'll only be for viewers in the UK, but the precedent could spread rapidly as American or other networks figure out how to use such a system to make money. One bloglimey praises the idea of a web-BBC-cast, as long as they do it right: "Excellent, but kinda pointless if it's just stuff that's on at the same time as the TV." Another Britoblogger also has a proviso: "If the quality is good enough (and it is from the BBC News live that I’ve seen on-line), then it will be a great success." This could be the sort of thing that would work well with a video iPod, if one actually comes out next month... you listening, Señor Jobs?

Posted by Philip Ewing at 12:16 PM | Permalink

Category: On The Telly

Grimmer Still

Well not only did "The Brothers Grimm" not do particularly well on its opening weekend — as the BlogPulse Movie Performance Prognostication Department foresaw — it couldn't even unseat a movie that's already been out for a whole week. "Grimm" took about $15 million after its debut, whereas "The 40 Year-Old Virgin," in its second weekend, made about $16 million. Box office figures from this weekend tell the tale. You know a lot of Mylanta is being consumed this morning as Tinseltown's kulturmeisters are grappling with the most recent dispiriting evidence their skills are rusty — consider that this weekend's top two movies combined made less than half of what Tim Burton's interminable "Planet of the Apes" took after its opening weekend in 2001. Why would moviegoers back then shell out to see a dog, but pass today? That's the crucial question on which the heads of the movie biz now cogitate. Some bloggers, however, have already made up their minds about the new movie: "I want my $8 and 2 hours back. Oh yeah, and I'd like whatever IQ points I may have lost while viewing it back, too." Now that doesn't seem to require much cogitation.

Posted by Philip Ewing at 10:54 AM | Permalink

Category: Moving Pictures

A Grimm Pronouncement

It wasn't really that good a movie summer, was it? "Batman Begins" was unexpectedly strong, but otherwise Hollywood has tended to worsen its own predicament by making bad movies and wonder why nobody wants to see them. Which brings us to the movie website that's no. 24 in our top links today, for Terry Gilliam's "Brothers Grimm," coming out this weekend. We're taking break from trying to guess what movies will make on their opening weekends, what with high oil prices and international tensions befogging our crystal ball, but we're going to guess "Grimm" will do poorly this weekend. Reasons? Poor msm reviews, for starters, but also strong indictments from movie-watching bloggers: "As I get older... I grow somewhat tired of his excess. He really has no discipline, either in production or especially in the editing room," sighs drevilbones. This blogger acknowledges the poor advance buzz, but will stick with Gilliam anyway: "I've noticed that the more they hype a movie, the less I enjoy it. But here's hoping." Check back Monday for our movie postmortem.

Posted by Philip Ewing at 11:40 AM | Permalink

Category: Moving Pictures

They Don't Make 'Em Like That Anymore

Album covers: Lots of people talkin' about 'em. What's your favorite? The Fab Four walking across Abbey Road? Bowie with that paint on his face? The bathroom wall with all the graffiti on it? We guarantee you'll have a new one after you check out today's no. 14 link in BlogPulse, The U.K. Sun's 17 top examples of album art. And by top, we mean worst. Mullets, moustaches, jean shorts -- the inimitable MC Pooh -- it's all there. "Should I be embarrassed," asks a poster here, "that I have pictures of five of those albums on my computer?" The answer is yes. "Frickin' funny," says ignaczy.

Posted by Philip Ewing at 10:45 AM | Permalink

Category: The Soundscape

A TV Robot Dog Struggles To Gain Mainstream Acceptance

Tom Baker is almost universally regarded as the finest actor who portrayed The Doctor in the BBC's old-as-dirt science fiction TV show "Dr Who." But the show's producers, at one point, inexplicably felt it proper to make one of his sidekicks a robotic dog. Now, as evidenced by BlogPulse's no. 32 link today, as the Doctor has returned, so too has his dog, K9. We've mentioned before this phenomenon of the Doctor's "assistants," many of whom were comely women, but we haven't mentioned this phenomenon of the show's robots, which, because the BBC F/X guys clearly were on a budget, slide around kind of generically and always must have smooth surfaces to move on. So K9 — and before him, the Daleks, who for as fearsome as they were supposed to be, may represent sci-fi's stupidest villains — deserve a lot of improvements if they're to be modernized for this new "Dr Who" series. (If any readers can say how the Daleks got around their flat-surface handicap, naming the episode and the circumstances, they'll get an official BlogPulse Shoutout in a future post.) As for K9, bloggers don't seem too pleased the BBC has brought him back: "Ugh, I hate him!! He annoys me sooo much!" writes a poster here. This poster agrees: "UGH. I hate K9. Stupid irritating little one-joke dog that does nothing useful." Maybe the new K9 not only needs to be able to walk on, say, grass, he also needs some new writers.

Posted by Philip Ewing at 11:18 AM | Permalink

Category: On The Telly

Can Ashlee Simpson Endure The Turkmen Lip-Sync Ban?

We're not usually ones to crack wise at serious curtailments of expression, but even our humorless civil-libertarianism must give way to this obviously jape-worthy news story, BlogPulse's no. 20 today. Seems President Saparmurat Niyazov, worried about his nation's artistic integrity — ah yes, Turkmanistan, the cultural powerhouse of the steppes — has added lip-syncing to the ban he's already imposed on opera, the ballet and long hair. This means faux-singer Ashlee Simpson, whose non-vocalizing essentially crashed her career into a concrete wall, must axe her hopes of reviving it by playing the Beet Bowl in Ashgabat. (She actually might go back on Saturday Night Live, but, as we bloggers say, whatev.) This blogger isn't so amused at the lip-sync ban because it's just the latest crackdown by a harsh ruler, but GrinBlog had the same idea we did. Sure it's bad, but anything to keep Ashlee away...

Posted by Philip Ewing at 12:01 PM | Permalink

Category: The Soundscape

Eavesdropping On Worf at Bedtime

The incomparable smart-aleck review McSweeny's has given the Internet what it most loves in BlogPulse's no. 12 top link today — geek mockery that geeks themselves can enjoy. "Klingon Fairy Tales" are the sorts of instructional stories that the wrinkle-headed warriors of the Homeworld can impart to their wrinkle-headed children as they sit around the glowing fire-like warmth-emitting hearth emulator, polishing their bat'leths. One shows the importance of good interstellar navigation, for example: "Little Red Riding Hood Strays Into the Neutral Zone and Is Never Heard From Again, Although There Are Rumors ... Awful, Awful Rumors." Ohio blogger JJ remembers a line from "Star Trek VI" in his take on the tales: "The Grimm Fairy Tales are best read in the original Klingon." Neuralgraffiti gives in to the unifying power of Trek: "Irredeemably geeky, but funny nonethless." And that is a dish best served cold.

Posted by Philip Ewing at 11:00 AM | Permalink

Category: The vast electric lunchroom

Cue the Electronic Dirge

The man who combined music and electronics is being memorialized today in the blogosphere. Robert Moog, inventor of the Moog synthesizer, is today's burstiest BlogPulse person and is being remembered for the pioneer that he was. JazzEnjoy includes a list of albums featuring his music (remember Switched-On Bach?) and discusses his influence on bands from Yes to Emerson, Lake & Palmer. The c64music blog highlights the elusive Moog Song Producer, and Dean's World holds Moog with the same esteem as legendary guitarist Les Paul. Moog died Sunday at age 71 in North Carolina.

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 12:16 PM | Permalink

Category:

Does Anybody Care If Puff Daddy Changes His Name Again?

Sean Combs has had a comparatively long life in the public eye, from signing Notorious B.I.G. to his Bad Boy Records label to being criticized by Tupac and his rival clique of West Coast rappers, to being crucified in a Nas video, to making a whole bunch of boring songs by ripping off old standards by The Police and Led Zeppelin. (He somehow enlisted Jimmy Page to help him with "Come with me" from the Godzilla soundtrack. Sample lyric: "Left me blinded/I co-signed it.") In that time he's been known as Puffy, Puff Daddy, P. Diddy and now, just Diddy. Does this rebranding change anything? No, say bloggers. "I've had enough of this. If I ever have occasion to refer to this man by name, it will be by Sean Combs and nothing else," writes this fed-up non-fan. Another noticed something funny about the story. "I also find it interesting he’s going to start talking in the third person. I guess he’s getting as sick of him as we are?" How could he not?

Posted by Philip Ewing at 11:39 AM | Permalink

Category: Celebs

What Women Don't Want

Women have always been some of nature's most mysterious animals, what with their fondness for "Dawson's Creek" and how they're nice to each other and and how they don't like to play air guitar for some reason, and more strangeness has been made manifest in BlogPulse's no. 22 link today. It's a 1966 board game called What Shall I Be and it progressively suggests that young girls consider careers as flight attendants, teachers, fashion models or nurses. You draw cards that tell you what skills will best serve each profession, such as "passed English" for teacher or "physical fitness" for ballet dancer, but also can encounter obstacles, such as "overweight," which can hurt your modeling career, or "slow thinker," — you're just a girl, after all — meaning you can't be a nurse. Bradley, the blogger who posted this game, writes: "And girls, don't even think about medical school or joining the track team. There are rules to every game, right?" So, wait, women don't like being misogynistically typecast into stereotypical gender roles? Weird. The fairer bloggers certainly don't like this game: "So I'm overweight, clumsy, I get too excited, AND I have poor posture and sloppy make-up. By the standards of this game, I should have starved to death by now," writes Berg. Another blogger doesn't see any reason she is disqualified for one job the game doesn't include: "Maybe we'll settle for being a blogger, instead," she writes. That's not "settling" — that's much cooler than any job on there.

Posted by Philip Ewing at 10:14 AM | Permalink

Category: The vast electric lunchroom

Dubious Distinction Awards

Guess being a child actor isn't all it's cracked up to be, what with supposed former Mighty Morphin Power Rangers high-kicker/chopper Skylar Deleon (today's 6th-burstiest BlogPulse personality) and his wife now charged with murdering a California couple (No. 24 top news story) by tossing them overboard their own boat -- alive and tied to the anchor. The Crusty Curmudgeon blog had the same problem I did: difficulty finding any mention of Skylar Deleon as a child actor; the name certainly didn't surface anywhere on the Power Rangers web site cast of characters. So for the time being, we'll take someone's word for it and focus instead on the other dubious distinction award for the day, which goes to Jude Law, who gets mentioned only because size does matter, apparently, when it doesn't meet the Tommy Lee standard.

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 12:12 PM | Permalink

Category:

Could His Fleet-Footedness Carry Him To The Oval Office?

We have been watching the past couple days to see if the site that's become our no. 8 link was just a blip or if it had staying power -- now we know it's on its way to Hamsterdancedom. Bloggers have been amusing themselves over this campaign website for Christopher Walken's 2008 presidential bid, coming up with hilarious ideas for his State of the Union speeches, potential running mates (Walken/Shatner is the best ticket we've seen) and the other attendant concerns of high office. T-Money marvels at how adroitly the hoaxers have aped the empty politispeak of our modern leaders, and how viable an alternative Walken seems to the current administration: "New polls indicate that the hoax website for Walken currently has a more cogent exit strategy in Iraq and higher overall approval ratings than Bush." And these guys seem all set to vote for Walken. (Their reasons will amuse you.) With Walken in the White House, we'd have a president who, perhaps for the first time, could literally dance around the issues.

Posted by Philip Ewing at 12:52 PM | Permalink

Category: Celebs

Well, They Are Really Nice Computers

Somewhere in his command center deep beneath Apple Computer headquarters in Cupertino, California, Steve Jobs tented his fingers and said "excellent" as he watched the most recent bedlam unfolding around his products. He knew that when a school system in Richmond, Virginia sold off its used iBooks for $50 apiece, people would clamor for them like 19th century Russian serfs. (Which, if they don't already use Macs, they basically are.) This story appears up and down in BlogPulse today as our no. 3, no. 6 and no. 15 links. One woman, rather than give up her place in line, peed on herself. Yikes! Was that Jobs' maniacal laughter just now? Bloggers hear it: "Way to go, Mac users!" writes waveflux, who can't see this sort of furor over a Dell selloff (though the iBooks are being replaced with Dells). Another blogger asks that you pay attention to the photos associated with this story: "Note the look of stunned horror on the security guard’s face. Boy did he pick the wrong day not to call in sick." We just hope Duke University brings in the National Guard when it eventually sells off all the surplus iPods it has...

Posted by Philip Ewing at 10:39 AM | Permalink

Category: The Gadget Scene

Sure To Cause A Lot Of Discussion In The Stormwind Taverns

During our college years, we used to wake up at 9 a.m. Saturday mornings and find our roommate playing the fantasy MMO "Everquest" on his computer, and then come home that night at 2 or 3 a.m. from a box social (ahem) and find him still there, casting imaginary spells and whatnot, surrounded by a pile of empty Combos bags and little plastic tubs of Hormel chili. That's the future for all of us as envisioned by BlogPulse's no. 11 top link, which foresees an impending era when the imaginary game world of buxom elves and stout but kind-hearted dwarves melds with the "old" world, the one of accountants and soul-killing banality. So many people are playing "Everquest," "World of Warcraft," and other games that let them be perpetually online, create new personas, make friends, fall in love, etc, that they'll prefer their exciting, pretend lives to their boring, actual ones. You'd think the people who'll be most enthused by this are those who have the weakest grip on reality right now: bloggers. But the world's ugly, angry, pajama-clad elite is cautious about The New Era. "The trouble is the amount of time and effort (not to mention money) that you put into just building your character to survive the melee, let alone be competitive in it," writes denning. "Both scary and thought provoking," says the hyperslug. All the predictions in the story about MMOs may not come true -- there's never going to be a "branch of government" for nerds whining about stupid stuff in some game -- but such virtual worlds are probably only going to grow bigger. And in our current climate, where every individual has her or his own reality anyway (Sheehan good; Sheehan bad) what difference does it make if new ones involve trolls and goblins?

Posted by Philip Ewing at 01:12 PM | Permalink

Category: The vast electric lunchroom

Their Powers Combined

Top-Secret Meeting Transcript
Date redacted Location redacted
Present: S. Jobs, CEO, Apple Computer; E. Schmidt, CEO, Google

Jobs: Hey, Eric, you know what we oughta do, we oughta team up.

Schmidt: Well, ok, Steve. As CEOs of two of the most beloved companies in the Internet and personal computing industries, I'm sure we could happen upon some agreement that would benefit our beloved customers, for whom all major decisions are made.

Jobs: Yeah, y'know, what we wanna do, we wanna fix it so, y'know, iTunes and Google work together somehow. Like, so you could search on Google for a song, or an artist, y'know, and you guys would return the search results, but also you'd return a link that would say, like "Buy this song from iTunes."

Schmidt: Interesting. Using the Google ThoughtLink surgically implanted in my cerebrum, I can tell without even using a computer that many people on the web would like the idea. Good idea, Steve.

Jobs: Yeah, thanks, but, ah, y'know, let's leak rumors of it to my legions of fanatical devotees and let 'em stew over it for awhile before we actually announce it, eh?

Schmidt: Hey, Steve, we all know that's how you get down.

TRANSCRIPT ENDS

NOTE: Transcript is fictional. Links are not.

Posted by Philip Ewing at 11:36 AM | Permalink

Category: The Gadget Scene

They Wish!

Well we were waaaaaay off on Friday in guessing how much money "Four Brothers" would make this weekend -- though we were correct in saying it'd be the top picture. Maybe we overestimated the appeal of Marky Mark's craggy, unshaven mug, or maybe in our initial prognostigatory calculations we didn't factor in Tinseltown's summerlong skid to the bottom. (Top movies for this past weekend are here.) Has it filtered through to movie theater execs and the studio heads that Americans don't like purchasing an overpriced ticket to a movie and then seeing half an hour's worth of advertisements before the feature? That we resent how cynically they sell such ads to dollop some pure greed on top of the hard-earned dollars we're paying to see their stupid pix? Apologies for the digression. To the blogs, where the movie seems to have generally been well received: "Mark Walberg did an okay job, but I was really impressed with Andre Benjamin. Good story," wrote matrimonially regretful Jim. Deadgods only partially agreed, mentioning "strong performances" that "are undermined, however, by the final act, which feels like it borrows from every other revenge picture ever made." And a poster here wrote "Oh my god, "Four Brothers" was the sickest movie ever," but the way these kids talk today, that could mean anything.

Posted by Philip Ewing at 10:48 AM | Permalink

Category: Moving Pictures

This Bunch Isn't Quite As Funky As Other Outfits He's Been With

Mark Wahlberg hasn't teamed up with his old krew for years -- no word on what's become of Hector the Booty Inspector -- preferring instead to assemble ad hoc units befitting various subsequent tasks at hand. He joined up with the comely Charlize Theron and super-Brit Jason Statham for this job, and this weekend he's brought together a new squad for some mother-related mayhem in "Four Brothers." Seems a shady cabal of crooked Detroit cops, city officials and gangstas has offed the woman who raised Wahlberg and three other street toughs, one of whom is played by the famed Hotlanta rapper Andre 300, and the lads have to mete out some payback, action-movie style. Our BlogPulse Movie Performance Prognostication Department is having kind of a difficult time getting a bead on this flick, because opinion is varying pretty widely out there: The Pen15 Club calls Andre 3000 "insufferable" and describes director John Singleton's choice to make this movie as indicative of "sad times indeed," but TheMovieBlog differs: "I just think the premise looks fantastic, and the trailers and commercials have a really strong and gritty feel to them that catches my attention." GearLive essentially splits the difference: "If you go to the movies to be entertained, check this movie out. If you go to see something that’s realistic and mirrors life, skip it and find something else." Fair enough. So look for "Four Brothers" to draw around $40 million this weekend, maybe a lil' more, maybe a lil' less, depending on the levels of funkiness it achieves. Check back Monday to see us crow about it or make lame excuses.

Posted by Philip Ewing at 11:16 AM | Permalink

Category: Moving Pictures

A Stupid Man Gains Acclaim Known Only To Few

Remember how, when Ron Artest got suspended for wreckin' shop on some impolite Pistons fans, ere'body was all, talkin' about how "fans aren't really part of the game?" Many a jock on ESPN said somberly that fans and players can never come into contact, that foolish fans sometimes actually think they're part of the game. Enter Scott Harper, or, rather, no, not "enter," (you'll see why) BlogPulse's third burstiest person today. Ol' Scott was taking in a Yankees game the other night with some of his pals when, compelled to be part of the action, he leapt some 40 feet onto the foul ball net behind home plate. He told his friends he wanted to see if it would hold his weight. (The guy's clearly stupid, but, c'mon, who hasn't been at a ball game and wondered that?) Bloggers have gotten a kick out of Harper's Hop, though with varying degrees of acridity: "Scott Harper should be sterilized so he's not allowed to reproduce and potentially contaminate the gene pool we all enjoy," writes a New York Republican. "Not only would he have killed himself, but he would have seriously injured or killed fans below," admonishes Chicagoist. The Catholic Packers Fan also weighs in on the Harper question by creating a new award for him -- one some readers may find offensive -- and further deepening the guy's embarrassment.

Posted by Philip Ewing at 12:13 PM | Permalink

Category: Sport Spectator

A New Meaning To The Term "Buzz." Well, No, Actually, Just Another Meaning.

You know what, let's take a break here a minute and think this thing through: BlogPulse's no. 32 link today is about a man on a Quixotic mission to buy a cup of coffee at every corporate-owned Starbucks in the world. That's almost 6,000 stores; he's been at it for about 10 years. We've been thinking about this awhile and we're torn by contrary impulses to lambaste the guy, who calls himself Winter (and only that, as he testily explains on his site) and to profess a sort of admiration for him. Con: His quest seems stupid because the whole purpose of a chain coffeeshop is that they're all effectively identical -- corporate food-service exists to homogenize and streamline products, customers' experiences, etc. Not only that, all that coffee will scour out his insides. Pro: He is on the road all the time, a shiftless, rootless wanderer who, as this blogger points out, can never succeed because new stores are opening faster than he can visit the existing ones. There's something appealingly American about that, isn't there? People don't seem to agree that this guy's worth Whitmanizing, though: "Seeing that many different Starbucks would have to be interesting-- I just have no idea why anyone would want to go out of their way to do it." Caffine-induced madness?

Posted by Philip Ewing at 01:26 PM | Permalink

Category: The vast electric lunchroom

The King Is Dead. Long Live The King?

You may have never heard of Scott Richter, BlogPulse's burstiest person today, but odds are very good he not only knows who you are, you've heard from him on multiple occasions. He's a businessman, y'see, whose sales pitch goes a little like this: "HOT XXX GIRLS GIRLS VIAGRA PORN MOVIES" or "ONLINE POKER TEXAS HOLD-'EM WIN!!!" Richter is the self-crowned king of spam, who forged his gaudy diadem from smut and discount prescription drugs, earning him the enmity of anyone who's ever owned a computer. Ostensibly, he's out of that game, thanks to a $7 million settlement he's paying Microsoft after Fortress Redmond sued him for helping to ruin the Internet, but, c'mon. Do you believe that? Bloggers hate this guy. "Really, I wouldn't be upset if he was hit by a car one morning while he's fetching the morning's paper," writes a poster here. "I don't care if it is Microsoft, I'm just happy to see that Snotty Scotty gets what's coming to him," gloats Kenn Christ. But some people think he deserves more than the current fine: "Now, I'm not going to say that US$7 million isn't a lot of money, but for someone who was supposedly "clearing millions of dollars a month" through his horrible spamming practices, does a fine of, at most, two month's work really punish the guy?" One hates to say it, but at this point in the discussion, talk could very well turn to the way the Russians deal with their spammers...

Posted by Philip Ewing at 11:16 AM | Permalink

Category:

Move Over Mohammed, Here Comes Harry Potter

Much as Frito-Lay executives probably smiled nervously when they read that Saddam Hussein loves Chee-tos, so too must British mega-author J.K. Rowling be awkwardly gulping her tea after seeing today's no. 19 BlogPulse link -- seems terrorists can't get enough Harry Potter. The Washington Times reports that, after the Koran, the most-requested books at America's Guantanamo Bay prison star the ubiquitous lightning-headed wizard. Naturally the Pottersphere has plenty of things to say about this: "Next thing you know those jack-booted torturers will be forcing the detainees to play Quidditch," writes Villainous Company; a poster on this blog guesses what the detainees like about the books: "I bet they are cheering for Lord Voldemort..." Perhaps wisely, the Potter-Baroness is keeping quiet about this new set of readers -- maybe, with her billions, she can afford not to worry too much about those particular customers?

Posted by Philip Ewing at 11:50 AM | Permalink

Category: The Dead-Tree Scene

Ankle-Deep In The Dead

Blog watchers will note that the links and ideas trafficked these days on the information superhighway are a real drag, man -- war, politics and neo-Nazi border patrollers. So thank goodness for the power of monastic nerds, closed off from the brutish world, parsing apart lines of code so they can achieve things that will ennoble, not cheapen, the human spirit: Porting Doom onto an iPod. This link is no. 15 in BlogPulse today, perhaps for the good reason that sometimes the world just makes you want to sit by yourself and kill monsters on a tiny screen. And it's heartening to know there are maverick developers who'll forgo Apple's original firmware and riskily install Linux in the best traditions of DeSoto and Magellan. Bloggers big and small have taken note, from TUAW ("I didn't think this was real when I first read it, but apparently it is") to SomJuan ("This is rather awesome"). What new achievements could the iPodLinux developers shoehorn into the little music players? Their only limit is imagination. And processing power.

Posted by Philip Ewing at 10:53 AM | Permalink

Category: The Gadget Scene

"Dukes" Aftermath

There is a scene about three-quarters of the way through The Dukes of Hazzard in which police are chasing Bo and Luke in the General Lee on a backwoods dirt road. The soundtrack belts out "Shoot to Thrill" by AC/DC and Luke, who has a compound bow for some reason, lights a flaming arrow and shoots it through the General's blasted-out back windshield, causing one of the pursuing cars to burst into flames. We credit this unexpectedly awesome sequence, and a scene in which Willie Nelson emerges from a barn full of suspicious smoke, for helping "Dukes" exceed our BlogPulse Opening Weekend Predictions by $2 million. The movie made about $30 million, and we predicted it would make between $25 million and $27 million. (The top ten movies for this weekend are here.) Box Office Guru had predicted $34 million for the Dukes' opening weekend, a difference we blame on Jessica Simpson's unexpectedly wretched performance and the way she's made up to look like some kind of bronzed marionette with Chiclets for teeth and a wig made from a thousand Barbie doll heads. "A department store mannequin would have been more charming," wrote Mike the conservative Christian. Cinematical -- and the rest of the blogosphere -- lamented that this is what passes for entertainment these days. And that it'll keep comin': "If stupid is what sells, you can bet Hollywood will keep giving moviegoers want they want, and then some."

A doff of the BlogPulse bowler to our alert reader who noticed Friday we'd misspelled "Hazzard." We'd have gotten an "F" for that back in J-school.

Posted by Philip Ewing at 10:38 AM | Permalink

Category: Moving Pictures

Bloggers, Assemble! Bloggers Ho!

You read it right -- we bloggers, accustomed to dancing in obscurity on the very knife-edge of pop culture, are sending two emissaries to the msm. BlogPulse's no. 13 top link today is about a pair of identical blogging twins who are trying to marshall the blogosphere's support to get on "The Amazing Race" so they can make money to buy their disabled mother a wheelchair-equipped house. Naturally that's a good cause, but what's also going on here is that the world's enormous caste of unpaid chatterers wants to be represented on TV by somebody other than Jeff Jarvis. "Will it work?" asks the TV Squad, "I don't know, but I do think we need more geeks on TV... We blogger geeks have to stick together after all." ConsolationChamps concurs: "Reality TV needs more geeky bloggers!" And CBS already has had a taste of what happens when you cross the blogosphere. Surely they don't want the whole Internet angry at them again.

Posted by Philip Ewing at 12:30 PM | Permalink

Category: The vast electric lunchroom

"Dukes" To Drop Dead?

Our shipment of homespun, corn-pone metaphors didn't arrive this week -- we think the mailroom accidentally sent it to the BlogPulse sea war tactics-analysis department because we got a Raytheon catalog with a submarine on the cover -- so this post will be rougher than the unshaven cheek of a man from America's agricultural zone. Ugh. Anyway, to business: The Dukes of Hazard is a-comin' out this weekend, and we blog watchers have noted something about it that can only bode ill for its success: nothing. Much as nobody mentioned Michael Bay's dog The Island until the week after its debut, and then only to confirm why it flopped so profoundly, so too are people only discussing "Dukes" to say they dread it. "I won’t see it," writes a poster on this blog (the reason why may cause some readers to blush; please be warned) and then there's the critics, who're being more critical than a... urm.. angry... ah.. horse? Forget it. The point is that the movie may lead its competitors in box office grosses after this opening weekend, but we believe that sum isn't going to be that high. In fact, let's play a little game: We think, factoring in the dearth of buzz and the poor reviews -- but also Jessica Simpson's butt -- that "Dukes" will take $25-$27 million this weekend. That's not a bad haul, but for a late-summer Hollywood production in a time when movies have been tanking worse than a heavy tank might tank, it's also not going to buy too many more Beverly Hills swimming pools. Maybe we'll be wrong, but check again Monday and let's see what we see.

Posted by Philip Ewing at 11:30 AM | Permalink

Category: Moving Pictures

Looks Like Nobody's Rick James Anymore. But Look On The Bright Side

Now that its death has officially been pronounced, fans can look back on the Dave Chapelle Show and marvel that (a.) it got on the air in the first place and (b.) it stayed on as long as it did. (Bloggers made it the 23rd most-traded link today.) Chapelle made not one but two R. Kelly parody videos, both of which tastefully involved the lyrics "drip drip drip;" he reinvented Sesame Street as a blighted Queens streetcorner where the neighborhood puppets sang songs about drugs and STDs; and made Rick James into a catchphrase for millions of fratboys. All that is quite an accomplishment in Rick Santorum's America. And putting such a positive spin on it is randomduck: "Chappelle’s program was high-quality from beginning to end: no filler, just great comedy. Ending now will close the series on a high note, something few programs have ever done." Also accentuating the positive is Dr.Pundit, who says at least it created a new comedy star: "Charlie Murphy (Eddie's brother) is truly the find from the show. Here's hoping he goes places." The same goes for Chapelle.

Posted by Philip Ewing at 10:49 AM | Permalink

Category: On The Telly

Cruise Back in the News, And None Too Soon

To be perfectly honest, we've missed Tom Cruise. He's been in BlogPulse's 20 most talked-about people all summer (today no. 7) but since his and his fiance's movies came out, he hasn't offered up much more of his unique brand of offensive, Scientology-based antics. We assume, of course, his betrothal to Toledo sweetheart Katie Holmes is still on, because she has dropped altogether from among the people most bloggers are talking about. But Cruise controversy resurfaced again earlier this week when Tinseltown grand dame Lauren Bacall, who is BlogPulse's no. 21 person, told Time she thought Cruise was "vulgar." This is the sort of thing bloggers live for: "We always knew we loved Lauren Bacall," wrote the Socialite. "Everything about Bacall speaks to dignity and talent," says Dick Mac. But not everybody is smitten all over again with the Key Largo star. She criticizes Cruise for using his love life to advertise for movies, but: "I wonder, though, if a young girl who marries an older, established actor, and stars in several movies with him would count as using her private life for commercial gain?" asks The Dead Pool. Maybe they're talking about when Bacall got hitched to this guy.

Posted by Philip Ewing at 12:20 PM | Permalink

Category: Celebs

The Reason Is That Guys Like To ROCK!

BlogPulse's third-most bursty person today is Amanda Griffiths, who many rock 'n roll listeners will thank someday for making an oft-dismissed art the subject of serious academic study: air guitar. In fact, she wants a PhD in it. But wait a moment: As Gadling sagely points out, nobody really knows why dudes are all about shredding, or pretending to, and girls are all, like whatever. Our BlogPulse audio-physiological research division suggests because female brains don't produce as much of a chemical called "Stratocastronin," women aren't seized by the intense need to pretend to play along with Jimmy Page's solo from the end of "Whole Lotta Love," or with Johnny Greenwood when "The Bends" comes on. (Our scientists blame a comparable deficiency of "Chicksolidaritrix" in male brains to explain why guys don't automatically belt out "Hollaback girl," as women do when they hear it.) Bloggers, especially professional academics, don't seem too amused: "The humanities: dead or just napping?" is the title of this post, and Rob and Linda seem to resent the ease with which Griffiths will become a doctor of philosophy: "Why did we all work our butts off to gain our degrees when all we had to do was play Stairway To Heaven on our right pants leg?" Because you were fooled into workin' for the man but she broke out and decided to ROCK!

Posted by Philip Ewing at 11:07 AM | Permalink

Category: The vast electric lunchroom

Is The Excuse Getting Old?

Baltimore Orioles slugger Rafael Palmeiro is the first big baseball star suspended under new rules to prevent steroid use, but his explanation for what happened is a little threadbare -- it already has been used by Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and others. "Why, I had no idea that what I was using was an illegal substance," each player has said. Even Palmeiro's teammate Sammy Sosa, who has stayed on the periphery of the scandal, claimed ignorance during his Cubs years when cork flew out of his bat. (And refused to take tests for steriods.) The story is all the more maddening because of Palmeiro's sanctimonious speechifying before Congress earlier this year. Does anyone really believe millionaire superstar athletes, guys who monitor every calorie they take in, guys with armies of trainers, blindly swallow whatever pills or rub on whatever creams or inject whatever solutions some vampiric impresario hands them? Bloggers don't: "So we must assume that little steroid fairies, or perhaps leprechauns, since he made his statement to Congress on St. Patrick's Day, injected Rafael while he was unconscious," writes Grouchy. "After he retires, Palmeiro may have a future in the Republican Party." The Daily Brushback has this simpley query: "Can you explain to our readers how one goes about accidentally using steroids? And second, is there anything you'd like to say to José Canseco?"

Posted by Philip Ewing at 11:10 AM | Permalink

Category: Sport Spectator

What Every Office Needs

You're probably sick of the boss always coming in and giving you grief. Every day he stalks into your cubicle with an armload of folders and says "Hey-ya, champ, what say we get crackin' on this stuff, eh?" Then he waltzes out for his three-martini lunch date at the country club. (He'll probably just take the rest of the day off, anyway.) At BlogPulse, we know what you're thinking. Why not use those forms for a paper airplane! We've got just the one -- bloggers have made it today's 27th most popular link. This airplane is guaranteed to lighten your mood as it wafts effortlessly above the surly carpet walls below. Still not sure? Listen to this: "Building cool and functional paper airplanes was never my forte but this site makes it easy for anyone to make a great one," says one blogger. Others don't need a dour office environment as an excuse for paper-based aeronautical experimentation. "Just because it's cool when you make a paper airplane that can really fly," says iFractal. Ah, but if he comes back and catches you, you didn't get the idea from us. It was Walter in accounts receivable.

Posted by Philip Ewing at 11:54 AM | Permalink

Category: The vast electric lunchroom

Pratchett v Rowling: This Time It's Really Personal

A curious thing has been happening in the Pottersphere since fantasy writer Terry Pratchett criticized J.K. Rowling for saying she "didn't realize" her Harry Potter books were fantasy: Bloggers have been agreeing with him. (It's today's top link.) "I have been finding Rowling's recent public pronouncements increasingly batty and to my ears the stuff about trying to 'subvert' the genre is yet another rather embarrassing example," writes astrofiammante. What goes on here? The last time somebody on the web critized Harry, the response was cold and vicious. But here they are, saying such things as "It seems he [Pratchett] has it right -- Rowling doesn't know fantasy when she sees it, or even when she writes it." Maybe the difference is that people love Harry, the bespectacled imp every girl wants and every boy wants to be, but they're pretty mild about the woman who created him.

Posted by Philip Ewing at 11:07 AM | Permalink

Category: The Dead-Tree Scene