I've long been a fan of Delta's slightly askew safety video, but Air New Zealand has taken the genre one step further. As part of their "Nothing to Hide" campaign, in which they tout that they have no hidden fees, the airline has produced a cheeky (heh heh!) safety video in which the participants are wearing nothing but body paint. Video below the fold.
Cheeming Boey creates art on disposable foam coffee cups. I want one, please. Gallery of cups here.
The Decatur Metro blog is reporting that The Grange in Decatur will be closed Monday and Tuesday. That, of course, would ordinarily only be important to fans of Irish-themed pubs. Oh, but the reason for the closing!
June 15th: Megan Fox (a.k.a. "Angelina Lite") attends the Transformers 2 premiere in London. While braving the photo-gauntlet, inadvertently (?) snubs kid trying to hand her a yellow rose.
The Los Angeles Times is reporting that Michael Jackson has died.
For your consideration, the trailer for The Last Airbender. I'm pretty sure it can't be good, given that it's directed by crapmeister M. Night Shyamalan, given that the extras casting director thinks that Koreans wear kimonos and Belgians wear lederhosen, given that one of the actors cast in a lead role thinks people won't notice he's not Asian. But you should feel free to go right ahead and see it, and let me know if I'm wrong.
John Hodgman addresses the Radio & TV Correspondents dinner, where he holds forth on the difference between jocks and nerds, positing that Obama is our first nerd President.
Bonus: A Kwisatch Haderach joke!
Vanity Fair has kindly "charted the most influential or amusing blogs about politics, gossip, Hollywood, media, and miscellany, and located them on two basic continuums: tone and content." It's a fun graphic, but you may notice there's a certain - how shall we say? - monochromatic quality to it.
Partially filmed right here in beautiful downtown Decatur!
This gives me an extreme freaking headache to even contemplate.
Golly, I sure do hope Paris doesn't run afoul of Dubai's notoriously strict legal system.
Roger Ebert takes on Bill O'Reilly and the negative effect that his style of broadcasting is having on society at large.
I am not interested in discussing O'Reilly's politics here. That would open a hornet's nest. I am more concerned about the danger he and others like him represent to a civil and peaceful society. He sets a harmful example of acceptable public behavior. He has been an influence on the most worrying trend in the field of news: The polarization of opinion, the elevation of emotional temperature, the predictability of two of the leading cable news channels.
Strange that Frank Rich, a former theater critic, and Roger Ebert, a movie critic, are providing some of the sharpest cultural/social commentary of the day.
Or at least, signs that the desert of summer programming is upon us. Join me as I delve into the dreck that is currently on the tube.
NPR's Linda Holmes takes Pixar to task for making their first female full-fledged protagonist a princess. Right on, sister.
My understanding is that after the summer blockbusters of 2010 and 2011 -- Toy Story 3 and Newt -- you're planning The Bear and the Bow, a Christmastime fairy tale rather than a summer adventure. And your first one about a girl -- way to go!But why, oh why, does it have to be about a princess? Again?
Et tu, Pixar?
I have nothing against princesses. I have nothing against movies with princesses. But don't the Disney princesses pretty much have us covered? If we had to wait for your thirteenth movie for you to make one with a girl at the center, couldn't you have chosen something -- something -- for her to be that could compete with plucky robots and adventurous space toys?
Oh, I'll admit it: I'm a Jon and Kate Plus Eight watcher, and I have been since the very first one hour special aired on Discovery Health. I came for the all-you-can-eat-buffet of cute children, and stayed for the voyeuristic thrill of watching Kate be mean to Jon. I stuck with them through the increasingly intrusive product placements, and brushed off hints of extended family dysfunction.
Oh my. The new geisha.
