Dan Dickinson: The Primary Vivid Weblog

Just a quick dash around the newshub, and I’ve dug up some fun things for if you’re bored post-Turkey today. Fuck Hip Hop – an extremely well written essay by Pierre Bennu on what’s wrong with Hip Hop. Don’t think this is me trying to be some hip hop poser – you can see from my play list that constantly flows by on the site when I’m at home that rap and hip hop make up less than 5% of my playlist, but the article covers a lot of what I see wrong in that section of the music industry. Most everyone heard about the tragic cop killing in Red Bluff, California. A chunk of people heard about the confession online. A smaller subset of people read it. What makes this case special and bizarre? The man who did it, named Andy and recently arrested in New Hampshire, claims immunity because he was incorporated – and as acting in the interests of the corporation. I quote: As a statement against this practice, prior to my action in Red Bluff, I formed a corporation under the name “Proud and Insolent Youth Incorporated,” so that I could use the destructive immunity of corporations and turn it on something that actually should be destroyed. The Register has a well written anaylsis of the situation. The entire situation puts me in a difficult position – I certainly don’t agree with the cop killing, but this is probably the most public and extreme stand against corporate crime in history, and am in awe of his gall. Then again, he may just be saying this after the fact to make him seem more political…whatever. It’s a bizarro case. BIZARRO! Gotta cut this short – time for turkey.

Driving 300 miles when it’s pitch black and there’s an impending threat of snow is not something anyone should do. But yes, we’re currently in Maryland for Thanksgiving with Katie’s parents. We left yesterday at 4:30 and got in just before 11 due to three stops and some terrible snow in the Ithaca area. We get to leave tomorrow at 7 AM to get Katie back for a 1 PM shift. So, 600 miles in less than 48 hours. :X Happy turkey day to all of you out there.

As seen on boingboing – Barbie now has a blog. Not just any blog – Sex And The City “I am a shallow being! All I do is shop and talk about men! Look at my gadgets!” style blogging! As if the world needed more of that.

I’ll admit, I’m a bit of a PS2 fanboy – but at least Sony doesn’t cram bullshit down our throats about the competitor. Neil has informed me that the page has since changed – humorous that Microsoft has to cover their tracks a day later, eh? This is what it originally said: Can I use ISDN or narrowband? No. Xbox Live was designed to be used with a high-speed Internet connection, which is why every Xbox that ships has a built-in Ethernet port. If you want to have a bad narrowband experience, go buy a PS2. When Halo is still the #2 selling title a YEAR after launch, you know something is rotting in Redmond. Oh, by the way, quotefile is back up. With 3 new quotes.

I’ve seen a lot lately, so I might as well make some recommendations. Wacky format for you geeky hipsters out there. IF you like coming of age movies AND you can’t stand Ryan Phillipe GO RENT The Dangerous Lives Of Choir Boys – which was equally enjoyable, has the Darko-tacular Jenna Malone in it, and despite some overblown animated sequences, is on a whole very good. ELSE IF you have a fetish for Catcher In The Rye GO SEE Igby Goes Down – Jeff Goldblum does a wonderful job, and it’s good to see Claire Danes again, but something struck me as being off about this movie, and the easiest thing to point at is Mr. Phillipe (how is he pronouncing it these days? Fill-eeep? Fill-eep-ay? Filleeep-ay? Fillip?) IF you need a laugh AND you like to be weirded out GO SEE Secretary – beautiful movie, extremely funny, great work from Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader, and while it does have that whole bizarre perversion thing going on, these two make it believable. ELSE IF you can deal with stand up movies GO RENT Notorious C.H.O. – Margaret Cho is funny as always. IF you have a brain AND you like to think GO SEE Bowling for Columbine – no explanation needed. IF you’re in the mood for something a little mindless but still thouroughly enjoyable AND you have nearly 3 hours to kill GO SEE Harry Potter & The Chamber Of Secrets – it was better than the first one, and honestly, the series is translating fine into movies, so I don’t see what all this talk about “drastic measures being needed” for the next movie is about.

The ramblings section – which for now, contains all my concert logs, some newly appended (finally, you too can read all about the drugged up guy at the Run DMC concert!) – is done. So dig in. Maybe I’ll even crank out some of the really old ones that I’m missing. In news that no one will understand, I finally beat Pink Dream Another today. Just nod your head and go “Okay, Dan”.

Nippon Television’s (NTV) producers have obviously never heard of the Geneva Convention. If they had, they wouldn’t have treated poor Nasubi the way they did. They wouldn’t have stripped him naked and shut him in an apartment, alone with no food, furniture, household goods, or entertainment. They wouldn’t have kept him there for over a year until he had won $10 000 in prizes by sending in postcards to contests. They wouldn’t have cut him off from the world and they would have told him that he was on nation-wide TV. I’ve heard of wacky Japanese game shows, but I think this one takes the cake. And I’m kind of surprised it hasn’t happened over in the US yet.

Yay, another feature restored to better-than-before functionality. The newshub is again active, allowing you to view a quick overview of rss feeds I find interesting. Worth looking over if you have nothing better to do and you’ve already run through my links section, I guess.

Ellen Feiss had her 15 minutes – which felt a lot more like 15 days – and just when you think she’s sort of faded out of sight as being the “stoner chick from that apple ad”, someone had to go and interview her. Link may be iffy because it’s been slashdotted. I’m a little relieved to hear that she thinks it’s all terribly funny, a little unsurprised to hear it was actually Benedryl she was on, and a little amused to hear that she thinks the Dell guy is “a doofus”. Now maybe everyone will leave the poor girl alone. I’m sure this will be the most blogged thing today, so I’m just DOING MY PART.

Words fail me for this picture.

Okay, maybe words DON’T fail me… What is it that causes mental insanity? What would make ANYONE want to do this, let alone someone so high-profile that would undoubtedly have news stories written about him almost instantaneously after the event? And why won’t anyone lock this guy up? Or take his kids away? If I took a 6 month old baby out on a balcony, put a towel over its head, and held it over the edge of a balcony with ONE ARM AROUND ITS NECK, I’d be arrested in roughly 2.5 seconds. Yet with Jacko, it’s EXPECTED behavior. This is one of those “losing faith in society” blog entries. Cue head shaking/sighing.