Blogs

Finally there's an iPhone app that actually makes me (slightly) consider buying an iPhone. It passed, quickly, but so far this is the coolest 'app' I've ever heard about. EpicWin turns your ordinary, hum-drum, perfectly mundane to-do list into an epic RPG game.

Want to gain XP, level up, earn yourself some treasure? Then get the car washed, do your laundry and get that passport application notarized, Mr. Hero. Then you'll grab awesome loot like a caffe macchiato, or a 100-calorie snack pack, you badass you!

I still won't buy an iPhone, however. It's too 'hipster' for me. I'm kickin' it old school with a pen and paper, yo.

Sup planeteers! Have you written a short story you're particularly proud of, want to share this literary masterpiece with others? Check out Wattpad, it's an e-book community where you can flex your creative muscles.

How does Hollywood (not known for its belief in American exceptionalism) bring Captain America to the big screen in a way that isn't so much about America, but really about everyone. Director Joe Johnston was quoted by the LA Times recently:

Perhaps you've heard of the plan to build a mosque within one block of Ground Zero? I wasn't sure how I felt about it at first. On the one hand, yes, this is a free country and we should be tolerant (there's exactly zero chance that you would be able to build a cathedral in Riyadh) but I finally decided it was in bad taste.

As a proud new parent I enjoy every minute I can with my son, and he certainly loves the attention he gets from Mom and Dad and all the old blue-haired ladies that wanna pinch his cheeks! We've been so often told how much he resembles the Gerber baby we decided to enter him in Gerbers Generation Photo Search.

The contest runs for one month and the baby with the most votes at the end could have his picture added to the Gerber website, or be in a Gerber ad or win a $25,000 scholorship!

You're allowed to vote once a day every day till the contest ends.
Here's the link: http://www.gerber.com/photo/?entryid=35999&/#/detail/

The subject title is a joke of course. There's never been any doubt that Italians do everything better. I'm half Italian, so I tend to do everything approximately 50% better than others. That includes tying my shoes, remembering my current age, talking with my hands, spelling, engaging in a full retreat, and electing porn stars to high office.

Sadly, 'Italian Spiderman' is only a spoof. But searching YouTube yielded a few additional 'webisodes'.

An Indianapolis parish decided to create a 'teachable moment' by staging an altercation between two black men while an unwitting white police sargeant tried to break up the fight. The sargeant was injured during the 'teachable moment'.

According to the report,

They are silently judging one another, and they are mutually pleased. Or, they just have nothing whatsoever to say to one another. Maybe the title could be: "Kermit and Christian Bale Have Nothing to Say" -- they're just sharing an awkward moment. Or they could be locked in a psychic battle like in Scanners, which would account for the nodding, the effort being so intense. (My money is on Kermit, in that event.)

Feel free to provide your own explanation.

JournoList is the email listserv created by Ezra Klein in 2007 as a place where leftist members of the press could meet with leftist members of think tanks and be candid about how they felt about issues. In 2009 the existence of the listserv became known.

(A 'listserv' is an email service that allows members to communicate by sending a single email that is then sent out to all members of the email list.)

When JournoList was first revealed by acerbic blogger Mickey Kaus of kausfiles.com much was made of how this was 'proof' of a liberal conspiracy among media pundits and newsmakers to slant coverage. New emails released from JournoList show that some members of the list actively carried water for the Obama campaign, especially when the racist comments of Obama's former minister Jeremiah Wright surfaced.