Our laptop fundraiser is still humming along … trying to raise the funds to buy the laptop that will carry this blog into the 21st Century …
An anonymous high-roller has requested an animated gif in honor of Olympic track great Emil Zatopek … triple gold medalist in 1952 … we can do that.
Remember, a $50 donation gets you an animated gif dedicated to you, a loved one, or a track & field immortal!
THANKS
I’m sure they could beat Dear Leader and his millions of starving citizens.
We interrupt this week’s Friday Face-Offs for an important fundraiser update.
We’ve passed the halfway point! We’re on our way home.
If you enjoy this blog, please consider donating to our laptop fund! Remember: $50 gets you an animated gif, $100 gets you a signed book (only one left!), and $1,000 gets you a tote bag!
THANKS
“She moved it from a restaurant to the parking lot outside.”
GLORY!
“You shut the servers down five times.”
GLORY!
“You can solve any problem if you just use values and principles.”
GLORY!
Tears of joy … tears of pain … tears of glory … Tears For Fears, remember them? I had that tape. “Songs From The Big Chair.” That was a good tape. I used to listen to it when I raked the back yard.
An anonymous high roller ultra-donor has requested a proxy animated gif for a friend! WE CAN DO THIS.
Wouldn’t you like to honor a friend or loved one by making a donation of $50 to our laptop fund and then requesting an amazing animated gif that brings a smile to all who see it?
THANK YOU
Check out when he analyzes the DIME. Fox News coin semiotics, represent.
Just got off the ol’ fax machine with the hottest Hollywood rumor-faxer … it seems my wildest fantasy has come true: NEW LINE CINEMA is starting production on a feature adaptation of Roberto Bolano’s novel 2666.
2666, which wound up on many critics’ “Best of 2008” lists, is a sprawling novel about people running around Mexico — either attending academic conferences, reporting on boxing matches, or (most often) getting raped and killed and dumped in a ditch.
Book features approx. 1,000 locations; 2,500 speaking parts; and 900,000 tildes.
According to an anonymous New Line exec, adapting the novel for the screen “should be a piece of cake — after all, the book is only like, what? Four thousand pages long? Feh, I’ve read longer novels. No problem.”
MORE EXCITEMENT: The same exec confirmed that the film will be a musical (honoring the late Bolano’s wishes), and will feature melodies from RUSH’s classic rock opera, 2112.
“2666 and 2112, together at last! This thing is gonna blow the doors off the cinemaplex,” said the same exec who keeps giving me all these great quotes. “Just wait until you hear the soundtrack: We’ve got one song called ‘Maquiladora Murder Fiesta’ set to the instrumental ‘YYZ’ — you know, that song from 2112 where (Rush drummer Neil) Peart is banging on the ride cymbal and it sounds like robots with Alzheimer’s disease having orgasms? Forgettaboutit, I can smell the Oscars from here. We’re gonna crush Randy Newman like a [EXPLETIVE] bug.”
Release of “2666/2112” is scheduled for 2012, to coincide with re-release of 2001.
Extensive marketing campaign will feature tagline: “2666/2112/2001 — 2012. Life doesn’t get any better than this.”
Ron Howard is set to direct.
=================
UPDATE: A Rush nerd has informed me that “YYZ” does not appear on 2112; rather, it appears on some other horrible Rush album. I apologize to anyone who mistakenly thought I had the slightest interest.
Amazing industry buzz this morning … just off the cell phone with a major Hollywood insider who confirms what I’ve been hearing for weeks: PIXAR HIT WALL*E IS COMING TO BROADWAY!!!
Animated flick — about a garbage-eating box who falls in love with some kind of flying iPod-thing — is set to follow the Lion King, Shrek, and other mega-hits from the cinemaplex who have found glory on “The Great White Way,” aka Broadway.
This production will be “fully immersive,” according to my source … producers plan to fill the theatre with actual garbage before each performance, and then have “Wall*E” clean the garbage in real time … Sez my source: “People will freak out when they pay $125 for a ticket and then walk into the theatre and see all the trash and old bagels and newspapers and fish and whatnot, but by the end of the show, they’ll be so in love with Wall*E and so grateful that he cleaned up all the trash, they won’t mind that they have contracted a host of airborne diseases” … due to tight economic conditions, expect the role of Wall*E to be played by a Roomba …
Lyrics are being written as we speak … songs include “Look At All This Garbage,” “Take Out The Trash,” “Get Trashed,” and “I Found My Love (In A Pile Of Garbage).”
Ladies and gentlemen, meet the newest high roller who is setting this blog on fire with her generous donation to the laptop fund:
A donation of $50 gets you a “High Roller” animated gif!!!
THANK YOU
David Brooks on Obama re-envisioning and -invasioning Afghanistan:
After the trauma in Iraq, it would have been easy for the U.S. to withdraw into exhaustion and realism. Instead, President Obama is doubling down on the very principles that some dismiss as neocon fantasy: the idea that this nation has the capacity to use military and civilian power to promote democracy, nurture civil society and rebuild failed states.
Foreign policy experts can promote one doctrine or another, but this energetic and ambitious response — amid economic crisis and war weariness — says something profound about America’s DNA.
What does that even mean? Seriously, what? Are we gonna sequence our national genome in the autoclave of hot Afghan conflict with an electron microscope sticking out of our X chromosomes? What?