Uhh... WHAT?

The Bally Total Fatness people have lost their shit and sent me this in email:

You're invited to watch Bally Total Fitness® featured on the season premiere of The Apprentice, September 22nd, Thursday 9/8c .

Please join us in celebrating this unique event. Your local Bally Club will have TV's tuned to The Apprentice so that you can enjoy this premiere episode while also getting a great workout. Many clubs will be hosting special viewing parties with activities including in-club events for special prizes featuring a commemorative Apprentice t-shirt giveaway. You will also have the chance to enjoy The Apprentice workout directly after the show or in the following days.

Instead, I'm going to start my Indie Rock Fantasy League.

google insanity

why, when I search Google for "rio texas" does it give me two sets of results about things like the Rio Grande and Del Rio, TX with a set of results about Aristophanes sandwiched between them?

Screenshots at these links (large .png files, 65-70k apiece):

http://www.masculinehygiene.com/d/m/rio-top.png

http://www.masculinehygiene.com/d/m/riobottom.png

T-bird

"Thunderbird is a marvelous drink for anybody wishing to affect a tough-guy, self-destructive rebel posture. Its surprising more rock stars don't cement their subterranean posing by swaggering into their favorite dive watering hole and demanding a Donnington Brainstorm, which is a potentially lethal mixture of Thunderbird and vodka."

Daily Lush takes on wino wine!

Globalization and its discontents: the adult film industry

From this week's CDC Morbidity and Mortality Report: HIV Transmission in the Adult Film Industry: Los Angeles, California 2004.

The first identified case was in a man aged 40 years (index patient) who tested HIV-negative on February 12, 2004, and on March 17, 2004, through regular monthly testing of blood samples, but subsequently tested HIV-positive on April 9, 2004. [...] During the time between his two negative tests, the index patient performed in film productions in Brazil, engaging in unprotected sexual acts. While in Brazil, he experienced an influenza-like illness that resolved before his return to California on or around March 10, 2004. According to LACDHS investigators, upon the return of the index patient to California, he participated in film productions in which he engaged in unprotected sexual acts with 13 female partners. Three of these 13 female partners subsequently tested HIV-positive by PCR after having tested HIV-negative during the preceding 30 days. [...] During film production, all three of the infected female partners had engaged with the index patient in specific acts associated with increased possibility of mucosal tears. None of the other adult film industry workers or private partners with whom these three women had contact during the 30 days before their diagnoses subsequently tested HIV-positive. As of May 20, 2004, the index patient reported having had no sex partners outside of work since February 12, 2004. The person who was the source of HIV infection for the index patient is unknown. [...] Production companies in the heterosexual segment of this industry have generally not required condom use for any type of sexual act.

(Emphasis added.) So, here's the drill. If you want to be a porn star 1) don't let any of your coworkers go to Brazil and 2) Do GAY porn only.

Tibor Rubin

dberg refers me to an OC Register story (genital/genital or bugmenot to read it) about Garden Grove's hometown hero, who is a genuinely admirable guy.


Anyone who picks maggots out of a prison latrine to clean the sores of his friends deserves the Medal of Honor and free beer for life. Especially when he'd already been in a Nazi death camp before he went to another war and got thrown in a prison camp again.

The army's official site about him is more descriptive of his life in combat and has background on his life and a video of him which has some very affecting testimonials from his fellow inmates.

And now he's the "Jewish Santa Claus" and gives out candy to the kids in his neighborhood.

Emo, Superemo, and Id.

1. As we run out of alphabetical names for storms, Sean Burke tracks our inevitable watery philological doom.
   
   
2. An interesting study of gender differences in psychology concludes that said differences are less than you might think. Extra points for the research being done by a Dr. Hyde... ...who is female!
   
   
3. Yes, this may well be the greatest punchline in the world, at least for the next fifteen minutes. Cackle.
   
   
4. Avoid Australian octopus sushi.
   
   
5. This Cthulhu movie is going to be totally gay.
   
   
6. Tiny, beautiful, Bugatti-like retro sports car. Want.
   
   
7. From Adjab: the vodka bong/bong vodka project for the Dutch and the beer for children for the Japanese. Ooookay.
   
   
8. Disney Princess Jewelry for the kids! With deadly poisonous child-stunting brain-eating lead! YAAAY!

Missile launch

Fascinating, frightening missile launch trail I shot tonight outside D's. When Vandenberg AFB shoots off a big rocket we get these, usually in the early evening. As a child I was terrified of them because I thought it was the beginning of a nuclear war. Now I'm just pissed off because they're testing a dumb expensive antimissile system.

In any case, it stops everyone in their tracks for a bit to consider the huge thing in the sky we just made.

Today's musical WTF

From punknews.org's news about the John Peel tribute:

Of note is that Jeff Beck, New Order's Peter Hook and The Futureheads will also record a cover version of The Buzzcocks' "Ever Fallen In Love" as a tribute single to be released seperately from the compilation.