Lizzie recently took a class where the instructor was a Bollywood choreographer. The instructor said that the typical Bollywood dance scene was shot in eight- to sixteen-beat measures, with cuts between to let the totally gassed dancers catch their breath.
So dig this — a stage presentation of about six minutes of uninterrupted Bhangra dancing. I can’t imagine a better workout.
So in the past fifteen days, I have had over 750 spam posts caught by Akismet. This is getting crazy. Since I installed Akismet, I’ve had 2816 messages caught. And these are the ones I don’t see — I still moderate a few a day myself.
So I ask you, gentle readers, if I allowed posts here about stock tips or hot nude black action, would any of you rush to click on those links? I just can’t imagine that this stuff works — I guess it relies on search engine rankings or something.
Then again, people send their account information to Nigerian “diplomats” just because they’re told to. So maybe this stuff works on some segment of society. I think I’ll take a pass on traffic from that segment, though.
The Daily Show last night was a good one — there’s a scathing report about Regent University, from which (if I recall correctly) over 120 of our current Federal attorneys have been harvested. I could go over it here again, but just go to www.dailyshow.com and watch the video about it from yesterday. John Stewart is funnier than me, hangs a better suit than me, and has a better desk than me. You’d be well advised to take this pill from him.
And some fun YouTube stuff:
Just some fun stuff. Happy Friday.
I’m certainly not scooping it here, but thought I’d mention it so I can quote the first response to a post about it on Slashdot by someone called tomhudson:
“Next up in the news … Congressman Dennis Kucinich is invited to go hunting with Cheney.”
John McCain has now told John Stewart that he has a gift for Rep. Murtha — an IED he can put under his desk. When Murtha responded on the floor of the House that joking about something that is blowing up our soldiers every day is unbecoming of a presidential candidate, McCain told Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America that Murtha should “just lighten up and get a life.”
He says he plans to use comedy in his campaign. I wonder when he’s going to start?
Doug and Megan have me doing some wandering around in Second Life. So far I’ve built a silly little avatar (far too skinny for my portly frame, but I got tired of tweaking) and accepted friendship from Doug, Megan, and some random person. Then I went dancing at one of Megan’s hangouts. Here I am doing the female version of the Macarena. You’ll note that as in real life, I dance alone and statically.
It’s a brave new world we live in today. Al Gore’s Internets have broadened my world yet again.
Nick D., a late-night personality on WGN Radio here in Chicago, has a guy on right now who has a book and a website about doing a little every day for the world (he’s on the radio in honor of Earth Day). His site is http://www.365act.com. It seems to be down right now (probably getting a fair amount of traffic for the moment), but he has some interesting ideas. And some silly ones. But it’s all about doing just a bit every day to improve your surroundings and therefore everyone’s surroundings.
He also mentions http://www.myfootprint.org — this is a site that lets you determine how much of the Earth’s resources would be necessary if we all lived like you. Personally, my lifestyle would require four and a half Earths worth of resources if we all lived like me. And I’m doing pretty well (not driving much, small apartment, walking here and there).
Luckily, there are billions of people in India and China who tap almost none of the planet’s resources who are picking up the slack for dumb Americans like me. But perhaps a few of those low-energy light bulbs might not kill us around here …
CNN has a video of John McCain answering a question about when we will bomb Iran. He says, “like that old Beach Boys song, Bomb Iran? Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran …”
What a cutup. The best part about it is that the room full of people who had just applauded the questioner just sits there, clearly aware that what he has just said is of questionable taste at best. He feels the tension, and there’s a nice, long awkward silence.
Does anyone take the Middle East seriously? Someone needs to.
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I had the great honor (thanks to our friend Jane) to go to the Chicago Cubs home opener at Wrigley today — I’ve been to many, many games before, but never a home opener. Wayne Messmer* singing the anthem, a full color guard, complete introductions with both teams up the first and third base lines, a parachute entrance by the U.S. Army parachute team (replete with flags for all the Cubs retired numbers and great events — you’ll see a “Santo 10″ flag in the pictures, for example), Devin Hester (Bears star kick returner) throwing out the first pitch and singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” and so on. It had all the elements, including a 5-3 Cubs loss due to shoddy pitching. But despite that and some pretty chilly weather (it snowed), it was a total blast.
An interesting side story — I sat next to a couple who got engaged about a half-hour before they got to the seats. The husband-to-be had bought his rabid Cubs fan girlfriend a commemorative paving brick outside Wrigley with his proposal on it, and brought her to it today to present her with a ring. I know this because about midway through the first inning, she turned to me and started waving her hand and said, “I got engaged today!”
Now, this is by no means the first time I’ve had a random attractive woman feel the need to go out of her way to volunteer the information that she was otherwise spoken for, but this was obviously a cause for celebration and congratulations. Turns out she’s a rabid Cubs fan, so we had a nice time talking baseball here and there. Her fiance was a bit more quiet, but then he’d been through a lot today. Turns out they got written up on the Cubs website — I found the story here when I was reading up on the game tonight. So here’s to Kerry and Dustin — congratulations, guys!
* for those of you not from Chicago, Wayne Messmer is the Chicago version of Kate Smith — he’s the gold standard National Anthem dude. He made some news some time ago by being robbed and shot in the throat, and making a heroic recovery. Now he sings the anthem all over Chicago, and is kind of the symbol of sports/patriotism around here.
I doubt anyone who reads this needs to be told, but just in case …
I urge you to read to the end — the Rutgers coach released a statement that is loving, strong, and eloquent about her own players, and serves to reinforce (by example rather than attack) the strength of her players and stupidity of Imus’s remarks.