Happiest day of my life

Today a genie came down from the sky and asked what two things I wanted in life. Obviously, I replied that (1) I would like Kate Walsh to be single again, as she obviously belongs with me and (2) that Jennifer Aniston also return my love her her by posing for GQ.

And that genie sure worked his/her/its magic. That, or Santa came early this year because my wish list is quickly being filled.

Wish 1: Kate Walsh

E Online reports that Kate's husband wants a divorce in an article.

Meanwhile my personal publication, B Offline, reports that I am single, available, and most certainly the perfect match for Kate. Don't worry you'll all get invites to the wedding — and tickets for Private Practice tapings, anyone?

Wish 2: Jennifer Aniston

Oh, how I love Jennifer Aniston. She's hilarious. And gorgeous. And has the best/most adorable facial expressions which the NYT Magazine shared with us last week:















And now Jen is gracing the cover of GQ for next month…nude. Okay, so I'm not going all frat-boy and *insert inappropriate reference to last week's 'SNL' digital short* just at the sight of slightly covered breasts and exposed thighs. Come on, I can't be a womanizer unless I'm talking about B. Spears! I just love that J.A. - just a few weeks before Marley and Me (you know, that cute movie my little brother wants to see?) is released - is baring it all.

























But now my jealousy is kicking in:





























What?!? And I can't be one of those models?? I mean, I already have the Lion King-esque hip tattoo so I should be a shoo in.

So, there ya go. A glimpse into my testosterone-filled brain for a second. If you're looking for something a little more estrogen-based, find Meryn and remind her that Ashton Kutcher will be here tomorrow.

—B. James Stewart

Killer Chic: Hollywood And Che Guevara

(http://reason.tv/video/show/622.html)

Tourist Snapshots From North Korea

(http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/paul_koontz_shares_his_pix_of_north_korea.html)

I would jump at the chance to go to North Korea--though being trapped there would be one of the most hellish fates I could imagine.

The Future Of Urban Design?

I want to live in a city like this:

Print Is Doomed, Electronic Media Set To Boom

Andrew Sullivan ponders the accelerating print media apocalypse:

Take the newspaper industry. It has been faltering badly under the pressure of new media for a few years. For much of the past decade, circulation for all papers has been declining at about 2% a year. The last year has been a test case of sorts. Newspapers had the story of a lifetime: an election campaign of historic interest, suspense, drama and personality. From Hillary to Barack, from John Edwards’s love child to Sarah Palin’s Down’s syndrome child, from John McCain’s wild lunges for relevance to the first black president, it was the kind of year in which circulation should have boomed. If you live for a story, this year was an embarrassment of riches.

And yet the decline didn’t just continue. It accelerated.

Between March and September the 500 biggest newspapers in America reported an average circulation decline of 4.6%. In six months. That’s close to a 10% decline per year. No newspapers showed any but fractional gains. It is therefore a near-certainty that many towns and cities in America will no longer have a newspaper after the down-turn. And that may apply not just to small names but to some big ones as well. The Los Angeles Times, for example, has gone from a circulation of 1.1m to 739,000 since the turn of the millennium. Its staff has been halved. Morale has never been lower.

Continue reading.

The solution? This:


(Via Engadget.)

Business Wire reports:

Flexible displays are paper-like computer displays made almost entirely of plastic. This technology enables displays to become easily portable and consumes less power than today’s computer displays. Popular applications for the technology could include electronic paper and signage.

The production feat is a milestone in the industry’s efforts to create a mass market for high-resolution flexible displays. Plus, from an environmental standpoint, the displays leapfrog conventional display processes by using up to 90 percent less materials by volume.

Mass production of such displays can enable production of notebook computers, smart phones and other electronic devices at much lower costs since the display is one of the more costly components.

I wrote a column detailing my predictions along these lines a few months back:

Technology enthusiasts have predicted the death of paper for some time now but have traditionally had trouble explaining what would take its place. Despite their usefulness for many tasks, the electronic displays on present-day laptops and other gadgets remain unable to match old-fashioned paper in terms of being lightweight, flexible, and, perhaps most importantly, easy on the eyes. Thus, although many people today, especially the young, get much of their news online, dead-tree publications still serve a unique and vital function.

But those age-old compact sheets of ground-up wood pulp are about to be supplanted by a new medium. If "plastics" was the economic buzzword of the late 1960s, "electronic paper" will likely achieve similar fame in the 2010s. The name may or may not stick, but the development of the technology is already proceeding at a rapid pace. Numerous electronics manufacturers are experimenting with flexible circuits that can be embedded in rubber, producing devices such as screens, keyboards, and touch pads that can be twisted, rolled, or folded without damaging them.

Continue reading.

The news today is particularly grim for daily newspapers, with the Chicago Tribune going bankrupt and the New York Times running out of money. Within the next several years it seems likely that most of the mainstream print media industry is going to suffer a fate similar to that of the famous Hindenberg airship:



The best way forward for primarily text-based media outlets is to move to business models focusing on making content available in as many electronic formats as possible. The flexible displays and electronic paper discussed above are going to proliferate with amazing rapidity over the next couple of years. News organizations that embrace this development and give up on wasting money squirting ink onto paper and shipping it all over the place will survive. The vast majority of those that don't will die. Sure it will be a painful process, but evolution always is.

Make no mistake, the media ecosystem that will grow up on the foundation of ubiquitous flexible electronic displays will be far better than the current print media environment. Barriers to entry will be substantially lower, opportunities for diversity will be greater, and stodgy centralized management will cease to be anything but a liability. So bring on the fiery doom as soon as possible. Only after there are ashes can a phoenix rise from them.

(Cross-posted at The Podium.)

Update:

I've written another blog post expanding on this one: Electronic Newspaper Business Models.

The Lonely Island Boys Rock My World

Hey, DI Arts staff fans and friends. Meryn's here to write the sequel to last year's "Why I Love Andy Samberg" post. It goes something like this: Jorma Taccone is the cutest guy alive. Andy, Jorma, and their friend Akiva Schaeffer, founded the Internet film comedy group The Lonely Island. These guys found themselves on Saturday Night Live soon after, Andy as a performer and Jorma and Akiva as writers. Together, they took the show into the 21st Century with the groundbreaking Digital Shorts; legitimizing YouTube with the sensational "Lazy Sunday." Not all the Digital Shorts are hits, but the ones with music tend to score with viewers. Now, the Digital Shorts are a must-see feature on SNL, and the subject of frequent Monday morning office chatter. SNL's Digital Shorts, with original music often composed by nerdish sex bomb Jorma, are also a hot spot for big names like Justin Timberlake (in the insta-classic "Dick in a Box"), as well as Jake Gyllenhaal Maroon 5's Adam Levine (in "Iran So Far Away," a tribute to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's trip to NYC).

Imagine my glee this past Saturday when I turned to the Peacock Network and saw this:



Yes, and the hottie rapping alongside Andy Samberg is Jorma Taccone. (I know, right?) He's also in Samberg's film, Hot Rod, directed by Akiva Schaeffer (who cameos in this Digital Short as the DJ). Molly Sims, Jamie Lynn-Sigler and none other than Mr. Timberlake round out the cast of my favorite Digital Short of this season. Please enjoy.

-Meryn, who is eternally bummed out to discover that Jorma Taccone is happily married.

Why I love hip hop

Hip Hip Violin And DJ - The best bloopers are a click away

Cable News as "Mean Girls," An Addendum

I'm not endorsing the positions of Jon Stewart and "The Daily Show" but this piece is a nice little bookend to that Medium I wrote a few weeks ago (to shamelessly plug my own work). And Stewart does it far better than I could ever hope to.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

MSNBC Replaces Fox News

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Oh, and sorry A.C. and Chuckie-T, but Jon Stewart is definitely the hottest of the cable newsmen, in addition to being the funniest by far.

-Meryn, who just can't believe David Gregory is going to be the new host of "Meet The Press."

I love stumbling.

I found this on NetScrap. I find it accurate. Note to fellow imbibers: try avoiding Stage 5 complications.

THE FIVE STAGES OF DRUNKENNESS

Stage #1 -- Smart

This is when you suddenly become an expert on every subject. You
know all and greatly wish to express this knowledge to anyone who
will listen.  At this stage you are also always right.  And of course
the person you are talking with is very wrong.  You will talk for
hours trying to convince someone that you are right. This makes for an
interesting argument when both parties are "smart".  Two people talking,
in fact, arguing about a subject neither one really knows anything
about, but are convinced that they are they complete authority on the
subject makes for great entertainment for those get the opportunity to
listen in.

Stage #2 -- Handsome/Pretty

This is when you are convinced that you are the best looking person in
the entire room and everyone is looking at you.  You begin to wink at
perfect strangers and ask them to dance because of course they had been
admiring you the whole evening.  You are the center of attention, and all
eyes are directed at you because you are the most beautiful thing on the
face of the earth.  Now keep in mind that you are still smart, so you can
talk to this person who has been admiring you about any and all subjects
under the sun.

Stage #3 -- Rich

This is when you suddenly become the richest person in the world. You can
buy drinks for the entire bar and put it on your bill because you surely
have an armored truck full of your money parked behind the bar. You can
also make bets in this stage.  Now of course you still know all, so you
will always win all your bets.  And you have no concern for how much
money you bet because you have all the money in the world. You will also
begin to buy drinks for all the people in the bar who are admiring you
because you are now the smartest, prettiest, and richest person on the
face of the earth.

Stage #4 -- Bulletproof

You can now pick fights with the people you have been betting money with
because you cannot be hurt by anything. At this point you would go up to
the boyfriend of the woman who had been admiring your beautiful self
all evening and challenge him to a battle of wits for money. You have no
worry about losing this battle of wits because you know all, have all
the money to cover this bet, and you obviously win a fight that might
erupt if he looses.

Stage #5  -- Invisible

This is the final stage of drunkenness.  At this point you can do
absolutely anything because no one can see you. You can get up and dance
on a table; you can strip down to your underwear, to impress the people
who have been admiring you all evening, because the rest of the people
in the room cannot see you. You are also invisible to the person whom
you have picked a fight with earlier in the evening. You can walk through
the streets singing at the top of your lungs (because of course you are
still smart and know the tune perfectly) and no one will think anything
of it because they can't see you.  All your social inhibitions are
gone. You can do anything, because no one will know.

And you certainly won't remember !

up next: the DI releases nude pictures? no. rest easy.

In the spirit of both the upcoming Fall Out Boy album, Folie A Deux (which I'll be reviewing on its release date of December 16th), and the finally-arrived Wentz baby, Bronx Mowgli (...yeah), I saw this floating around online and couldn't resist. Please feel free to join in.

This dude is someone's father now. Think about that.

The "Be Pete Wentz" Poetry Meme

01. Put your music player on shuffle
02. The first lines of twenty songs = a poem; the first line of the twenty-first song is the title

(for full Wentzian effect, which you can see on display here, along with a host of other assorted plugs for clothing and other ridiculous crap, i've gone full no-caps):

i just want to belong

the seaweed is always greener 

needed some time, so i could find a little strength to redefine

i came up like everyone, they taught us all the same

dear, i fear we're facing a problem

when your eyes fall down you know you're like a crook

long ago

standing at the back door

my latest sun is sinking fast

sittin here, eatin my heart out, waitin

i wake up, my shoulder's cold

everybody knows which way you go

she turned me on, but now i'm shakin

like a moth to a flame burned by the fire

every time the day darkens down and goes away

in my place

hello?

come to my house

bah humbug, no that's too strong

it's easier to fall and harder to stand

don't want to say goodbye to you

Ahahahahahahahaha! That was awesome. And I actually swear that I didn't not put that one Christmas-themed song in there on purpose--iTunes works in mysterious ways, what can I say.

— Anna, who's a classic (like a little black dress).