Web Scout exclusive! Rick Astley, king of the ‘Rickroll,’ talks about his song’s second coming

Web Scout – Online Entertainment and Culture – Los Angeles Times

I think he handling it quite well actually.

Thank god he’s not trying to roll (ha!) this into a comeback. That would just be sad.

Still a good song though…

When A Bagel Just Isn’t Worth It

It’s actually a pretty nice day here in NYC, so when I went out this morning to go get my daily cup of Oren’s (and a blueberry muffin today), I walked outside instead of taking the underground tunnel to Grand Central.

(For those of you who have never been there, Grand Central has all these tunnels and entrances that spider-web out. A lot of them a creepy long tunnels, but we have one that run all the way to our building, which is handy to have when it’s cold outside. I actually find more of them all the time.)

As I crossed the street to the building right next store to us, I noticed there was a couple, a young guy and girl, out front with a folding table on the sidewalk. Normally this is no big thing here, but as I got closer I noticed that instead of cheap sunglasses or Underarmor, they had bags of bagels. A sign informed me that the bagels were free.

Nothing is free when given out on the street of NYC.

A free, “Stress Test,” is really a group of Scientologists trying to get you to go home with a copy of Dianetics. (Again for those who have not been here, those guys are everywhere.) A free pamphlet either comes with the hassle of throwing it away yourself, or having to talk to the guy handing it out for at least 10 minutes in a conversation that might start out about how Bush is a screw up, but will quickly nosedive into how the CIA is controlling the nation’s supply of puppy chow in order to turn all dogs against their owners.

Needless to say I passed on the free bagels.

Now here’s where other bloggers and I differ. I’m sure some other blogger would have walked up to these two, who were more then willing to talk to whoever came their way, and asked what this was all about.

I, on the other hand, was all to happy to pass them, not once, but twice. Sure I was curious, and, sure asking would have made for a better story, but after living in NYC awhile you learn that pacifying my curiosity is greatly out weighed by my desire to not be chatted up by some cult. Not that these two were particularly in a cult, but if they were wearing white short-sleeve shirts, I would sworn they were Mormon. (Well at least the guy.)

As it stands, they were outside a major bank building, Citibank I believe, and were more likely just wanting to talk to the bankers coming out about how their foreign deals are killing baby aardvarks. Or they well could have just been two people from a bagel store nearby with a excess bagels that morning. (Although as much as I would like to believe that, most of the breakfast places near work are run by scruffy old guys who, besides looking nothing like these kids, wouldn’t have the time, nor the desire to hand out free wares.)

So while, yeah this story could be better if I had 10,000 pictures and a long discussion with them about their, “Cult Of Bagel,” and how we need to repent or muffin ways (whoops), I guess I’m just posting all this for two other reasons.

1. If you have a cause you believe strongly in, handing out free bagels from a folding table on Park Ave is not going to sway any minds. Hell, I watched the DNC stand out there one day for hours, only to get pushed around by bankers on their way to get $20 sushi. (Personally I caved, and handed they guy $20. Now I am on every mailing list the democrats put out. Lesson learned.)

2. No matter how good of a deal it looks to be, no matter how many people are standing around doing it, it’s not a good idea to engage people handing out free stuff on the street of NYC. At best you have to listen to a 30 second sales pitch. At worst, you wind up with a shaved head, standing outside the airport Starbucks screaming, “Death to the muffin heathens!”

Either way, your not getting that time back.

Follow Twitter Conversations – Quotably

Follow Twitter Conversations – Quotably

Wow, I’ll have to bookmark this.

You don’t know how many times you see a tweet that goes something like, “@guysname Yeah, but the bananas could travel through time!” and you have to weigh having an open-end statement like that vs. running down the 17 twitter posts that explain it.

Excelent for those, “If it wasn’t for my horse I wouldn’t have spent that year in college,” moments.

Better Then I Hoped

Alright, so it’s the day after and I have to say… the episode wasn’t that bad.

I still stand by my Britney statements. She was out of place and stiff. The whole thing seemed as if they didn’t have the heart to tell her to do another take, so whatever they got they went, “Awesome. Good job Brit!” and moved on.

Now I want to point out that I’m not saying that just to bash Britney. She does (or did) have talent. She could sing fairly well, and she could dance. But she can’t act. Sorry but them’s the beans. I appreciate you like the show, but maybe you should just watch it rather then having them shoehorn you into it.

With that out of the way, I still like the episode.

Yes like Joel said in his review, a lot of the stuff that happened that was sitcommy, but honestly I didn’t think about it that way until he pointed it out, so I don’t feel it counts. If, as I’m watching the episode, I don’t notice how corny it is, and it’s not until a reviewer points it out, I don’t count that against the show. If they can sneak things like reading a self-help book to impress a girl only to find out she thinks the books is lame in there, and I don’t notice it until the next day, well good for them.

I think Sarah really saved this episode and that her and Josh Radnor did have good chemistry. And I liked the 2 minute date. It was totally something Ted would do, and having a call back joke with Ranjit the cab driver was icing on the cake.

Over all the good out weighed the bad, making what should have been a bad episode into, well a decent one at least.

Oh, and Manos over Plan 9 From Outer Space. Hands (ha!) down.

Things Are Not Looking Good

Britney/NPH/RiffTrax

First, let me say I love RiffTrax. I’ve bought about 4 already, and it really is like MST3K, only with a way updated catalogs.

I haven’t bought the Riff on Wally Wonka with Neil Patrick Harris yet (mostly because I don’t have the Wally Wonka DVD), but judging by the clip they have, it looks like a good time.

On of the reasons why it looks like a good time is because How I Met Your Mother is one of my favorite shows at the moment, and Neil is great on it.

So hearing that Britney was going to be on it obviously worried me a bit, but I’ve trusted Thomas and Bays this far I was willing to follow them a little bit more. Heck, I sort of liked that Britney might have made Alicia Silverstone walk, and we ended up with Sarah Chalke instead (but that’s mostly the Scrubs fan talking).

But now watching these clips, I’m upset. While her character is supposed to be bumbling, it feels more like it Britney the actor messing up, and it sort of takes me out of the HIMYM world a bit. She seems out of place, and the whole thing feels more like publicity stunt from a show that I thought was better then that.

Now I will grant that HIMYM has alway been a bit of an underdog show and could use a bit of the spotlight a big name could bring, but I just wish it was someone with a little more acting under her belt then Crossroads.

I’m vested so I’ll stick with the show to the end, and I’m hoping Sarah will help with the Britney aftertaste, but I don’t feel like the people tuning in to see Britney will be able to see past her, and come back after she’s gone.

And, from what I hear, they need all the viewers they can get.

TOYSREVIL’S I LIKE TOYS: g.i. joe movie snakes eyes revealed

TOYSREVIL’S I LIKE TOYS: g.i. joe movie snakes eyes revealed
I’ve haven’t heard too much about this movie, other then that they were making it, but I remained cautiously optimistic about it.

Now here are the fist shots of Ray Park as Snake Eyes, and it looks like they are least getting the character design right. Plus you can’t go wrong with Ray Park as a ninja.

I’d say, “Count me in,” but, please. We all know I was going to to see this no matter what they did.
(I was going to link to the AICN post, but I actually read TOYSREVIL more then I read AICN, and I like that TOYSREVIL lightened the shots to bring up the detail.)

The Kubrick Site: Clarke’s 2001 Diary (excerpts)

The Kubrick Site: Clarke’s 2001 Diary (excerpts)

Very cool insight into the making of 2001. I love the little tid bits of all the stuff that they rejected, yet later turned into major parts.

Like,

November 21. Read Leakey’s Adam’s Ancestors. Getting rather
desperate now, but after six hours’ discussion Stan had a rather amusing
idea. Our E.T.’s arrive on Earth and teach commando tactics to our
pacifistic ancestors so that they can survive and flourish. We had an
entertaining time knocking this one around, but I don’t think it’s viable.

It also gave me a lot of insight into what was happening in the movie. I regretfully never read the book, so this helps me see the whole thing in a new light.

My Humble (And Mostly Made Up) Opinion Of Background Apps On The iPhone

Daring Fireball: So Who’s In Already?

I’m really not interested in who’s been accepted into the iPhone SDK beta program. To me it sounds like that email sent out to applicants telling them that the program is full at this time was just Apple’s way of telling them, “Look, we wanted to get the SDK out to you people so you can start making apps, but we’re not entirely ready on our end. So thanks for the interest, but don’t be surprised if you don’t hear back from us for a little while.”

I mean, come on folks, we still have 2 to 3 months before Apple is ready to push everything out. And by the time the launch date rolls around, Apple probably will have most, if not all, of the developers in their program.

The thing that does interest me is Gruber’s second point. The lack of background apps on the iPhone.

On one hand I completely understand with the need to not bog the phone with a whole bunch resource hungry apps that run all the time. As someone that had a PocketPC back in the day (the precursor to Windows Mobile), I know how quickly your device can lag after you launch a bunch of programs.

Keeping the iPhone responsive should be one of Apple’s chief concerns.

On the other hand, an IM program really loses something when you can’t let it run in the background.

It my not log you out just because you switched away, but I know many times where I have been looking to talk to someone, left to go to the bathroom, and the person I was looking for logged on, messaged me, and signed off, all before I could get back.

At the computer this is one thing when your are not physically not there to respond, but on the iPhone, you would look like you are on, and you could respond, but you are no longer receiving notifications because you switched to go read Google Reader in Safari.

The average user isn’t going to understand why it looks to everyone that they are logged in, but that as long as they are not looking directly at the app, it won’t let them know someone is trying to talk to them. They are going to get back from checking email, and wonder if the app is broken for not telling them they got 3 messages in that time.

It would just be nice if the IM on the iPhone would allow me to actively have a conversation while doing other things, without having to stop and check every few minutes to see if the other person responded. Not a deal breaker per se, but it would be nice.

Heck, I’ve already changed from using Google’s fancy iPhone web app, to just using logging into google.com/reader/m directly, since the URL’s will take you back to where you were before you left Safari. Google’s iPhone web app is nice, but it’s all done in javascript and ajax. So while it looks awesome, and lets you configure the app the way you like it, when you get into reader the URL is always, google.com/m/reader. That’s fine when you stay in Safari, but if you back out and go back in, Safari wants to reload the page. All it sees is google.com/m/reader and brings you back to Reader’s front page.

At least with google.com/reader/m, the URL reflects what feed and what post you are on. So even if Safari wants to reload the page, you’re right back where you left off.

Again, not a deal breaker for me (I didn’t really plan on using any of the other features in the Google web app anyway), but I think it might be nice to explain this kind of stuff to people who are as geeky as me or have the patience to find this stuff out on their own.

(PS every time I said “iPhone,’ I really meant “iPhone/iPod Touch,” since I am just an iPod Touch user. However I find it’s just easier to say “iPhone” when discussing such things.)

(PPS I’m not a developer, just a humble desktop support guy, so please forgive me if there is some part about the developer side of this that I misunderstood. I do know that users get upset when things don’t work the way they expect them to, and will lash out at whoever they can get a hold of to complain. In my case it’s complaining to me when the entire blackberry network is down, in Apple’s case it’s to them when an IM app doesn’t constantly update them no mater what they are doing. I’m starting to see a longer line at the 5th Ave Apple store.)

Features : Radar Online : An American Apparel model’s defense of the controversial CEO

Features : Radar Online : An American Apparel model’s defense of the controversial CEO

I can understand that she might personally have no problem with how they pose her for ads, and she might even like Dov Charney, but even after reading this they guy still sounds like a sleeze.

Besides the fact that I feel like I have to wash my hands after just looking at his picture. They guy just looks dirty.

Oh, and I’m sorry, but I think you’ll have a hard time finding a woman who wouldn’t be grossed if their boss gave them a vibrator. I’m no lawyer, but I’m pretty sure that’s one of those things they tell you not to do in the sexual harassment training.

Ugh, I need a shower.

(For the record, I’m not a big fan of AA’s stuff. It’s way too over priced and the AA few shirts that I have from Threadless all shrank pretty quick. Good thing they ended up switching to a different manufacturer.)

GoDaddy Silences Police-Watchdog Site RateMyCop.com | Threat Level from Wired.com

GoDaddy Silences Police-Watchdog Site RateMyCop.com | Threat Level from Wired.com

This is a couple of days old, but man GoDaddy, way to cave at the first sign of pressure. Makes me feel real confident that if I ever used you guys to host or run a domain for a web site, that you would pull my site at the first sign of trouble.

Especially in a case where police’s concerns seem pretty unfounded. Obliviously undercover officers’ identities need to remain private, but aren’t normal officers identities a matter of public record? And really, the people who would have used this site for nefarious means would probably have found out the information through other means anyway.

Granted I think these sites end up becoming pretty stupid over time as more and more people log in to call some cop who gave them a ticket a, “doodiehead,” but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a right to exist.