Girls & Drugs: The Way to a Carjacker’s Heart

Steps to a carjacking FAIL:

1. Carjack somebody, taking victim’s cell phone with you.
2. Receive text message from victim’s friends, explaining they are partying with naked chicks and drugs.
3. Text back your current location; wait for girls & drugs.
4. Try explaining things to the cops when they arrive.
5. FAIL.

[Via Gizmodo]

The Gentlemen Just Wanted to be Delightfully Tacky. Or Not.

Wait - it's 2009... people still go to Hooters??

When douchers sue Hooters, nobody wins.  Three guys, looking for a paycheck, got the clever idea to file a class action against Hooters, because the restaurant chain – get this – refused to hire them as waiters.  The plaintiffs want emotional damages resulting from the sexual discrimination.

Now, I’m no fan of Hooters’ employment practices, and the place is nothing if not trashy.  But, to take a page from Seth and Amy… really, guys?  Really?  You want to be servers at a place called “Hooters”?  Really?  You think you should be objectified and ogled by dudes drinking beer?  Really?  You really want to flirt with male patrons?  How about that.  Really?

I mean, if these guys do want to flirt with dudes ogling them, more power to ‘em – maybe hooters can change it up for a new demo and earn some points for progressive policies, but somehow, I think these scumbags plaintiffs are in it for an easy buck.  [Via Jezebel]

Update: While I was writing this post, in comes word from Hooters that this is hardly a novel idea, and they’ve beaten similar raps before.  They won’t hire men to be objectified, dammit, and the law can’t make them!

Fare Thee Well, Tony Dungy

Those aren't glares - they're halos.

I was in class when I saw this and couldn’t post it up as quickly as I’d have liked, but my Colts are officially in a coaching transition as Tony Dungy has stepped down to focus on – what else? – faith and family.  Thanks for the ring, Coach.  Now go rescue some troubled youths from those dirty streets of Naptown.

More Musicians than Abe Could Shake a Stick At [UPDATED]

Via WaPo:  Well, kids, the rumor was true, and the Boss will be playing somewhere in the immediate vicinity of the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday, along with a crazy lineup of pinko-commie-Islamofascist-fake-America-lib’ral-leftist artists.  Start time is T.B.D. 2 p.m., and it’ll show on HBO from 7 to 9 that night.   The performers list includes the likes of:

Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Bono, Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, Renee Fleming, Josh Groban, Herbie Hancock, Heather Headley, John Legend, Jennifer Nettles, John Mellencamp, Usher, Shakira, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, will.i.am and Stevie Wonder. …

Jamie Foxx, Martin Luther King III, Queen Latifah and Denzel Washington will be among those reading historical passages. The Rev. V. Gene Robinson will give the invocation.

I know where I’m spending my Sunday afternoon.  I’ll hopefully have some pictures up this time next week, when – oh yeah – I’ll be getting dressed for a little shindig at the Air & Space Museum.  Gonna be an awesome weekend.

For the Ladies: What to Say the Morning After

From AL and via Jezebel:  Are you a lady who’s recently lost her virginity?  Do you expect to be?  Then boy have we got the read for you!  Direct from 1965, Found Objects brings you The Recently Deflowered Girl, a very nice little (parody) etiquitte guide to the confused, but glowing, young woman.

It’s Like… He’s Speaking to Me!

Via Yglesias:  Define irony?  Making this videoabout New Media Douchebags and putting it on YouTube, mayhaps?  Kind of great it comes out the day I’m sitting around trying this blogging thing out again…

Get on HBO! (Oh Yeah, and a Free Concert too)

Via DCist:  HBO is taping airing (presumably live) the Opening Celebration for the 56th Presidential Inaugural on Sunday January 18.  Rumor is that Springsteen will be headlining, but given that HBO is onboard, even if the Boss skips out, you can bet somebody good will be there.  And did I mention that the concert will be on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial?  How do you spell badass?

The Internet Is Your Playground: Psychotic, Lying, Whoring, Still Going to Clubs at Her Age, Skank Edition

• That image is not of Ebola or HIV/AIDS or even Africanized honey bees.  No, it’s a much more devastating plague of low wages prices that has spread insatiably from Arkansas through the rest of the country:  Wal-Mart.  Check the animation for some real epidemiology.  [via Gizmodo]
• Step 1:  stupid misogynist asshat blogger anonymously writs nasty things about a model.  Step 2:  said model takes offense.  Step 3:  model sues Google in order to find identity of stupid misogynist asshat blogger.  I don’t know exactly where the profit comes in.  [The Big Money]
• Of course, as soon as I say something about ESPN’s effective monopoly on teevee sports, in comes the cable monopolist, wanting a piece of that action.  [Sports by Brooks via Deadspin]
• And finally, another to add onto the pile of stupid tattoos that will be regretted later.  [Deadspin]

Happy Birthday TBTL!

Long-time producer Jen Andrews, Japan's Number One Mixer Sean De Tore, and host Luke Burbank, the crew behind TBTL

I’m a big fan of Luke Burbank, Jen Andrews, Sean De Tore, and everybody who goes into making Too Beautiful to Live happen.  (That means you, GRZA, Nickturn, and Robin Turner!)  I’ve been listening since AL introduced me to the show in April, and I’ve even been on the show by the magic of telephone technology a couple times (including for a really ill-advised entry into a mustache competition).

Anyway, tonight is the one-year anniversary of TBTL’s very first episode, and it’s sure to be a great episode.  Tune in online tonight at 10 p.m. EST, or just hit 97.3 on the FM dial if you find yourself in Seattle (I mean, that’ll happen sometimes).  At the very least, click over to iTunes and subscribe to the podcast – they’re just coming back after a week of Best Of… episodes, so you can jump right in with the cream of the proverbial crop and be up with the new stuff!  It’s the best of both worlds!  You’ll thank me later.

At any rate – congrats Luke, Jen, and Seanny – here’s to another great year of pushups, the Busey, Hot Cheetos, and literally running marathons.

Gimmicky Much?

Like many who spend significant time in the tubes and in front of the tube, I have a love-hate relationship with the WWL.  They are essentially a monopoly provider of sports television, and honestly their production values are some of the best, if you’re into bells and whistles.  But they love them some gimmicks.  Just to name a few, there’s “Who’s Now?”, “Best Sports City”, Chris Berman, and now tonight’s switcheroo, where the network’s top NBA announcing crew will go to Durham for tonight’s Stephen Curry Davidson-Duke matchup, leaving the NCAA commentators to the NBA game in Denver.

Big reveal and more after the jump.  God, it’s been a long time since I said that…

Rip Van Culturegeist

Image courtesy of http://www.elfwood.com/art/a/l/altorres/rip_van.jpg.html

*Yawn*

*Stretch*

I must have dozed off there for a second.  What’d I miss?

An election?  Okay, sure.  Worldwide economic collapse?  I mean, that happens sometimes.  Tampa Bay won the pennant?  What the shit!?!?

Wait… I was out of commission for how long? Fucking six months??  Shit.  When you said the Devil Rays made the Fall Classic, I thought it had been the better part of a decade.

Apologies, dear readers (both of you) for the absence.  What started out as a minor over-reliance on The Internet is Your Playground and Lost in the Tubes became critical after a simultaneous work crunch for both Juice and me.  When laziness and inertia set in, there was really nothing doctors could do; Culturegeist was down.  Finally, a London-induced internet coma for myself and a bout with acute loneliness for Juice (Sorry, buddy!) just cemented the status quo sans blog.

Anyway, we’re going to be regaining our sea legs over the next little while – assuming we ever had them in the first place – and as Juice said, hopefully we’ll have some exciting new stuff in the pipe.  If nothing else, class doesn’t start till Monday, so I have a few days to reaquaint myself with finding the weird, wild stuff we all know and love.  And now I’m even assisted by The Magic that Is Google Reader and more blogs than I ever knew I could read.

Should be fun.  Again.

The Internet Is Your Playground: BRAINS!! Edition

• Want to scare your neighbors?  Keep those goldurn kids off your lawn?  Maybe even frighten off that pesky groundhog?  Boy have we got the thing for you!  (Caution:  may require occasional feedings involving human flesh and grey matter.)  [Gizmodo]

• Speaking of the walking dead, ladies and gentlemen, your Washington National Baseball Club!  [Bugs & Cranks]
• And while we’re on the topic… so long, Billy Packer.  [Deadspin]
• And for those still among the living who would like to get a fix to maybe feel like a zombie for a while, just listen for the happy music.  (Seriously, though, I’ve been making the joke that the ice cream trucks in the neighborhood around RFK are dealing for a while now, and I’ve heard real stories of this happening elsewhere.  Nobody should be surprised – it’s kind of a great cover, until it isn’t anymore.)  [DCist]
• And for anybody who’s convinced the apocalypse will come from climate change, and not something sensible (like zombies), here’s something for you.  [Capital Weather Gang]

Just for good measure, because no discussion of zombies is complete without it.  A special bunch of videos after the jump.

What the Hell Ever Happened to… Soul For Real

New feature time!  Much like VH1’s Where Are They Now?, our own What the Hell Ever Happened to… will track down the celebrities of our youth, using what limited resources are available to us – mostly our devilish good looks, and Wikipedia.  The inspiration for this feature was the following music video, which prompted the question you see above:  What the hell ever happened to Soul For Real?  [So, apparently embedding has been disabled for every version of this video residing in the tubes.  It will have to suffice for you to link over to YouTube to watch.  Apologies, but seriously, go and watch.]

Soul For Real.  Man, what an awesome group.  I mean, when I was a kid, they were like Jackson 5 meets Boyz II Men.  I remember watching them lip sync Candy Rain on Nickelodeon’s All That when I was a kid.  (All That, coincidentally, may be the subject of a future What the Hell Ever Happened to….)  They could sing, they could dance, and they were the bomb.  I mean what 13-year-old didn’t want to be in a singing and dancing heartthrob group with his older brothers?  (Anybody?)

…and then nothing.  They had the one song that got them onto a tween-targeted sketch comedy show, but that was it.  I for one never heard anything from them again, outside of that song many, many times over the intervening years, thanks to the wonderful (seriously) All That:  the Album.  I mean, this was the group that kept the teenage-heartthrob-boy-group-who-sing-and-dance vibe going through the early 90s.  I won’t say they paved the way for Backstreet, Blackstreet, *NSYNC, and 112, but they definitely performed routine highway maintenance.  Find out what happened to this most important one-hit-wonder pop-soul boygroup of the mid-90s, after the jump.

The Internet Is Your Playground: Tattoo’d on the Couch Edition

I’ve got a trip for work, so I’m likely out for the weekend, which means I won’t have a Weekending… post up tomorrow.  Suffice it to say that one of the (few) great international club soccer rivalries involving an American team renews itself Saturday night as your D.C. United play host to CD Guadalajara, better known as Chivas – the Goats.  I’ll see you kids Monday – here’s your Playground.

• Let’s keep the self-reference going from a couple days ago.  I’m planning on getting a tattoo this summer – thankfully I wasn’t considering any of these designs.  Wouldn’t that have been embarrassing?  [Radar Online - shout out to AL]
• And speaking of embarrassing… what a way to die.  Death by Couch.  [Reuters - shout out to Ms. Kelley]
• And back to the self-reference.  (What?  We’re a blog – it’s in the job description.)  The week I finally cave and buy a Mac, out leaks photos of the next edition.  Every bleeping time.  [AppleInsider]
• With all the important matters facing the District, from schools to transit and everything in between, perhaps the greatest question is this:  Are we a town or a city, anyway?  [DCist]
• I’ve never been to Yankee Stadium.  I’m doing my best to rectify that this summer, before it’s too late.  If you manage to make it up there, think about following Rick Reilly’s lead… if there’s anything left to pilfer, that is.  [ESPN The Magazine]

Lost in the Tubes: Footballs Are Soccer Balls Edition

• I can’t believe I’m posting to a Chicago Fire blog with United playing those evil men in red tonight in U.S. Open Cup play, but when I see that you posted links to your top 20 soccer commercials all time, I just can’t help myself.  [The Red Card]
• This bit is a little bit old, and it’s managed to slip through about 3 days worth of links.  Don’t say Culturegeist never did anything for you, at least not after you give this to your 80s-TV-obsessed cousin for his birthday.  Or your brother, who loved Boy Meets World.  [NYT]
• Personally, I’d rather see nuclear rule the power landscape here like it does in France.  (Yeah, I said it.)  That said, I’m all about diversity, and wind power definitely has its place.  [CNN]
• Okay, must appease Juice with this joke… New York Magazine.  Will Leitch.  Giant inflatable garbage bags on the streets.  Um… sex with man-leggings!  [via Urban Prankster]
• And because we’re nothing if not self-referential here at Culturegeist, here’s a link to a post about the shiny new entry level DSLR Canon is unleashing next month.  Having been looking to break into the whole “taking pictures with a nice camera” thing for a while now, I, for one, can’t wait.  [Machochip]