Half Nelson is One of the Year’s Best

I recently saw the film Half Nelson. I hadn’t heard anything about it before heading to the local indie theater – but it is great. The story is about an inner-city junior high school teacher (Dan – played by Ryan Gosling) who forms an strange friendship with one of his students (Drey – played by Shareeka Epps) after she discovers that he has a drug habit.

half-nelson

I’m not going to go through the entire plot of the movie. Instead i’m going to list some themes and scenes…..

One way to look at the movie is to see Dan representing the white liberal establishment of America: well intentioned and talented but undisciplined (or destructively disciplined).  To the establishment, the black youth is an abstract idea that can be addressed by exploring history and putting some serious thought and money behind the problem. However, the establishment, like Dan, falls flat on its face when you actually see how this course of action impacts the students. There’s a reason why Dan – who actually sees the futility – self medicates.

There are 2 cats shown throughout the movie – one in Dan’s apartment and another at Frank, the local drug dealer’s house (Frank is played by Anthony Mackie and is great in the movie). To me, the cats represent the respective white and black communities. Dan’s “white society” cat is inside his home and taken care of (housing, food, car and attention) – similar to his upbringing. Dan comes from a white middle-class family and is loved by his parents. On the flip side, Frank’s cat is not allowed inside the home and kicked to the streets where it must fend for itself – similar to his and Drey’s life. That’s why it so shocking to see “proper home” cat and a man who’s been given all the opportunities dying.

I love the scene where Dan goes to confront the drug dealer Frank. He asks that Frank stay away from Drey. I was expecting to see a few punches by someone. Instead, it stumbles into a conversation, to which Frank asks, “You’re supposed to be the good guy?” and Dan responds helplessly, “I don’t know! I don’t know!” These two guys are the two options provided for today’s youth – and they both know Drey deserves better.

Drey’s mom, who’s working double shifts to create a good life for the two of them faces quite a dilemma. She’s working a legit job yet that prohibits her from actually raising her child. Because she doesn’t subscribe to a lifestyle that Frank or her brother (imprisoned for selling drugs) do, it results in her been absent most of the time and Frank and Dan doing most of her daughter’s parenting. Which in itself is tragic and unbelievably sad.

Another great scene is when Drey and Frank are driving around selling drugs. It’s here in his car when he tells he that he relationship with her teacher (Dunn) is inappropriate. That’s right, the local drug dealer, while using an 8th grader to deliver the drugs doesn’t like that her and her teacher are actually becoming friends. Ah, it’s so good.

There are so many good scenes in this film. It worth your time to check it out.

ED and Pronto Condoms

I wish the words “erectile dysfunction” never existed. I wish even more that there weren’t a billion commercials a day (and during football games) reminding us that some dudes can’t get it up. Even more than that, i wish that i didn’t have a bunch of questions about these drugs actually work. Such as: if you take a pill and it “works” and you’re successful in your attempt to bed someone, does it go away or are you left “hanging” all day. Are you able to carry 2 cups of coffee and your donuts all morning? Also, it kind of makes me sick how all the people in the commercials have a little devilish grin on their faces, like they know they are 1 pill away from getting on board the sex train. Again, i wish this wasn’t part of my life and i usually don’t think about it

Something on the internet – that world of tubes – reminded me of this problem today. It’s the 1-second condom made by Pronto Condoms. It’s for those people who can’t stay in the mood for the 3 extra seconds required to put a condom on. I have no idea who these people are, but apparently now there is a solution. There’s an informative video here in case you don’t believe me.

Can you imagine working for this company and each day you spend trying to figure out how to best market and make a condom even easier

Scorsese Making a Rolling Stones Documentary

This just in…

This year’s best movie is Scorsese’s The Departed and he’s now taking a break from gangsters and going to follow around The Rolling Stones and make a feature length film documentary. Apparently he got it started when he filmed their concert in NY this past weekend.  Let’s just hope it’s better than The Aviator (most overrated movie ever).
Scorsese is no stranger to music documentaries. He made No Direction Home in 2005 about Bob Dylan and The Last Waltz in 1978 about The Band’s last concert. Needless to say, a kick-ass director and one of the best bands ever will probably make for a solid 2 hour piece of entertainment.

And speaking of music documentaries. I have heard that the Dixie Chicks vs. Right Wing documentary in theaters now is really awesome.  Anyone seen it?

Tendencies of a Recovering Frat Guy

I read lots and lots of articles, and occassionally they hit the nail right on the head. As a dartmouth frat guy (here’s the breakdown of them – try to guess which one is mine), i know people like this and can appreciate this article. It’s scary. This is from a Charlotte paper….

“During my five-year college reunion in May, I snuck into my old fraternity house, which at the time was being used as some sort of community service dorm. As I wandered about taking pictures, a student approached and asked politely, “Excuse me, who are you?” Instinctively, I turned around and yelled menacingly, “Who the f*ck are YOU?” The girl scurried off, but the incident made me introspective. Here I am, twenty-seven-years old, with a relatively successful career, regular car insurance payments, and pillowcases that match my comforter. Yet at the same time, I can’t drink one beer without drinking twenty, I can’t converse with a girl without trying to take her home, and I can’t even step foot in a fraternity house without immediately regressing into an asshole. While college is many years behind me, vestiges of the experience remain deeply ingrained in my personality. Welcome to the world of a recovering frat guy.

“Of course, I’m not the only one. There’s an entire faction of twentysomethings out there who live seemingly mature lives – but only to the naked eye. Take my friend Mike, a successful software developer in New York whose downtown apartment has actually been passed down for years to successive generations of graduates from his fraternity like an off-campus party house. Or my buddy Justin, a writer here in LA who is looking to move to a new place – but has yet to find one big enough to fit hisbeer pong table. Unfortunately for him, “Hardwood floor quickly soaks up cheap beer” is generally not an amenity typically found on craigslist.

Recovering frat guys aren’t required to have ever been Greek. In fact, they don’t even have to be guys. On average, every other Evite I received from girls over the past year has been for some sort of elaborate, costume/theme party that reminds me of sophomore year. If you’re a strong, independent woman in her mid-twenties who is still throwing parties entitled Pimps & Hos, Forties & Hos, or Golf Pros & Tennis Hos, you are most definitely a recovering frat guy — dressed like a whore.

To me, the phrase, “Let’s grab a drink” is both the rallying cry and secret password of the recovering frat guy movement. For some reason, no one uses that phrase until they’ve graduated college, and then they use it so frequently it becomes virtually devoid of meaning. If you really think about it, you only actually grab a drink with about 10% of the people you say that to. Of that 10%, most think you literally want to have a solitary cocktail and exchange pleasantries or discuss current events (these people are often married or lawyers). The remainder – who you quickly recognize as kindred spirits – take “grab a drink” to mean “play beer pong and find that party where chicks are dressed as whores.”

Why is it, then, that so many of us, whether subconsciously or not, have adopted this quasi-Peter Pan lifestyle? These days, it’s no longer, “I won’t grow up.” It’s more like, “OK, I’ll grow up, as long as I can still throw up once a weekend.” I think the answer is simple: because we can. The world is changing. Getting married in your twenties is no longer the norm – in fact, those unfortunate souls who do are now outcasts, scorned and shunned, spit on and kicked to the side of the road by the rest of us single folk. And that means we now have more time to live our lives the way we want to and, most importantly, have evolved the ability to do so while still excelling in the adult world. People ask me all the time how long I can continue calling myself a recovering frat guy. Those people are usually sober and annoying. And my response is always the same: “Who the f*ck are you?”

Some people move into the real world more easily than others.

Amazing Story of American Playing in England's Premiership

t1_demerit2.jpgThis is a great and inspiring story of an American who saved his cash and went to England to try to play soccer. After a few years of earning next to nothing, he’s now, through an amazing series of events, playing for Watford in the Premier League. Here’s the story in Sports Illustrated magazine:

————————————-

LONDON CALLING

They said Jay DeMerit, a kid from Green Bay, didn‘t have what it takes to play professional soccer in America. So he went to England. England? Yes, and he’s now a bloomin’ favorite

Three years ago, in Jay DeMerit’s previous life, Sir Elton John didn’t ask to shake his hand. Three years ago, before he scored one of the most lucrative goals in soccer history, yellow-clad Englishmen didn’t chant his name, didn’t wear his jersey, didn’t burst into tears of joy over his flying header into a rippling net. Three years ago Jay DeMerit, late of Green Bay, was a soccer vagabond in a foreign land, an MLS reject plying the fields of London’s city parks, a Sunday pub leaguer sharing a friend’s attic bedroom in a dodgy part of town and subsisting on $70 a week and a steady diet of beans on toast.

Now, of all places, he’s here: on the emerald grass of sold-out Vicarage Road, the cozy stadium of the English Premier League’s Watford FC, a small-market outfit like DeMerit’s beloved Green Bay Packers. It’s an early-autumn afternoon 15 miles north of London, and this time DeMerit’s foes aren’t a bunch of hungover blokes from the pub but rather the superstars of Manchester United, the world’s most famous team. The sight of the Red Devils should intimidate the Hornets defender (Welcome to the Premiership, Yank), but not today. Not after his journey from the sport’s lowest levels to a league with a global audience of 600 million.

Continue reading “Amazing Story of American Playing in England's Premiership”

6 Word Stories (and Captions)

Ernest Hemingway was once prodded to compose a complete story in six words. His answer, personally felt to be his best prose ever, was “For sale: baby shoes, never used.” Some people say it was to settle a bar bet. Others say it was a personal challenge directed at other famous authors.

The same thing is going on at Flickr with photos right here. It’s lead to some funny captions. Some samples:

And just like that, she snapped. (photo)
I could do this all afternoon (photo)

Yesterday, she learned the shocking truth (photo)

(I found out about this on Flickr’s founder’s website: Caterina.net and pretty much reposted it verbatim)

Universal Studio's "Welcome" Movie

Back before the South Park guys made South Park, they were just looking to make a buck any way they could. Universal Studios, right after they acquired Seagram Liquors actually hired them to make a video for new employees. Luckily for us, they were still completely crazy and hysterical. Here’s a peak at the video

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-6493841613076981287&hl=en]

Also, keeping with the spirit, my friend SubjectToBlackout sent me the awesome “Make Love Not Warcraft” episode of South Park which is damn good. If you have a spare 22 minutes, i highly recommend you check it out. The episode has been taken off YouTube, but you can get it here at DailyMotion.

The episode was so awesome that it actually has its own Wikipedia page. Pretty funny. Check it out, or as Cartman says:

You can just hang around outside all day tossing a ball around, or you can sit at your computer and do something that matters.

Qloud's Music Search and iTunes Plugin Launches

We launched Qloud yesterday and it’s been a crazy ride.  The response to the idea and the site has been positive.   We were first reported (here) about by a popular technology blog called GigaOm which had a good review by their journalist Liz Gannes.  Then we were reviewed by a very popular social networking site called Mashable (here) which got into all the features of our site and nailed what our idea is. One quote from them:

It’s a neat service that looks incredibly slick, although the interface takes a lot of getting used to – I constantly forget to clear my old search before conducting a new one. That said, I’m verging on the side of liking Qloud: it’s still rough, but the intention is there.

Oh yeah!  These two reviews caused us to be featured on Digg (here) which drove a ton of users to our site last night causing our servers to go down twice.  All the users commenting and contacting us caused me to stay up pretty late.  Which is a great problem to have.

Today was another story.  Due to the interest yesterday, we were then listed on the del.icio.us site’s Hot List.  And the popular blog LifeHacker featured us as the Download of the Day.  These drove another drove of users from all around the world to Qloud.

On our Qloud blog we have a MeeboMe widget which allows us to talk to our users in real time and while all are encouraging, we’re definitely having some technical difficulties with the plugin.  They should be fixed soon, but it’s great to get real feedback from real users.

If you haven’t tried it, please  and register (sorry – only Windows for now) and let me know what you think.  Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

Why Google Buying YouTube Is A Good Idea

Yesterday, someone sent me an email about the Google/YouTube deal with the note “seems like an absurd amount of money.” Well, i think it was a good deal for Google. Here’s why:

  1. YouTube has critical mass which is VERY hard to get
  2. YouTube (like Google Video) is a complete browser-based system which fits in with google’s long-term scheme of providing a browser suite (mail, calendar, tv, etc.) on low cost computers to undercut Windows and Apple and dominate the world.
  3. 10% of all google traffic goes to youTube and they are the number 2 destination people go to (#1 is MySpace). Earlier Google did a strategic deal with MySpace so now the top 2 places people go to from Google are to google-friend sites
  4. This further underscores that the actual technology is no longer the most important asset in the web 2.0 world. Revver, JumpCut and even AOL Video have better technologies but YouTube has users and users are what matter. TagWorld, CyWorld, Bebo, Faces.com, and Multiply are all better than MySpace in that they look better, they have more and better features but MySpace has critical mass
  5. Page views equal cash and YouTube has a lot of them. Because they haven’t fully monetized them yet doesn’t mean they won’t. They needed a partner with an ad serving system and relationships with advertisers – Google’s the best at both. In fact, Scoble was wondering what it would have been like if Microsoft had bought YouTube – and it all comes back to who has the relationships with the advertisers. Google’s #1 business is advertising and now they added a major piece of page inventory and now dominate web video inventory too (YouTube is 48% of all web video).
  6. 1.5 Billion is a good price in my mind. People said 1/2 a billion was too much for MySpace. Less than a year later, MySpace got $900 million from Google so it could power the search on the site. There’s clearly money to be made here and 1.5 B isn’t too much in my mind.

What do you think?

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