Bits and Babs for 1.17.09

Watching: Adulthood
Listening: I Need Love by Plan B f Jacob Anderson
Reading: The Company by Brian Littell

News of the Day:

• A brief history of American presidential inaugurations, which is like feting someone before their execution.
• A pottery-load of Iron Age coins are unearthed, but still not enough to bail out a bank.
• A book about how to not write a book.
• James McAvoy drops a new play and a load of f-bombs.
• Millionaire goes to the clank for stealing pages of really old books. Don't mess with the British and Oxford Libraries.
• Telling it like it is. The Times says: 'Temperatures in Western Europe go crazy'.
• The NEA's most recent report on reading gives hope that we aren't doomed to idiocy after all.
  
• A Michael Jackson musical - because there are no original ideas on Broadway.
• Impact diamonds spell death for woolly mammoths! (Featuring a quote from an SIU prof.)
• Third-hand smoke. Just quit already.

The Kennedy Center Honors aired a few weeks ago, and Barbara Streisand was one of the vips. The lady does not like the prospect of being out-diva-ed - as evidence by her enthusiastic reception to performances by Idina Menzel, Ne-Yo, and Beyonce. I sense that this willful convergence of star power from every corner of the entertainment industry could have been better orchestrated. Ms. Menzel is fantastic - when she's a mooing lesbian or painted green (or with her hot husband). Her version of Don't Rain on My Parade sounded like an overeager theatre grad who thinks she's right for every part. Think Bunny's daughter on Extras or, it must be said, the blond chick in High School Musical (but with punchier vocals). Next up was Mrs. Jay Z. I heart Beyonce and she does a fierce Etta James, and Diana Ross if you want to count the Dreamgirls gig, but she couldn't seem to find a balance between reverential and original. Result: uninspired. And then there was Ne-Yo. That was just odd, and uncomfortable in a this-night-can't-get-any-worse-because-I-just-kissed-George-W.-Bush-and-he's-sitting-next-to-me sort of way. But I guess they love her, they really love her.

(Alright, this was just my excuse to post a clip of Heather Headley, of Aida fame, who killed Elton John's Your Song at the KCH some years back. Her performance defies my vocabulary.)

Bits and Bobs for 1.15.09

Watching: Spooks S07E04
Listening: You Give Me Something by James Morrison
Reading: The Company by Brian Littell

News of the Day:

• Tape art. Only in Japan.
• Graphene - the wave of the electronic future. Or as the BBC calls it, a 'bendy gadget'.
• BAFTA nominations are up. Slums, Buttons, Kate Winslet.
  
• China hearts Bush. I must have missed those parts of the country.
• Death by funeral procession. Sad.
• The penguins are disappearing!
• Mac users turn to applesauce at news of Steve Jobs's departure.
• All hail the Mini as it celebrates 50.
  

Why 2008 sucked: Grad school; 4 different roommates; Sichuan earthquake; pirates; Adam Carter got blown to bits; the economy had it worse than Adam Carter; Sarah Palin and the Plumber bloke.

Why 2008 rocked: I discovered History Boys and Spooks, which led me to a pantheon of overly attractive and highly talented actors (and Hermione Norris); lots of visitors to HK; Barack Obama was elected.

Things I await in 2009: Finishing grad school; President Barack Obama; Spooks (series 8); Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince; Star Trek; Wolverine; Robin Hood (bumped to must see tv only because Toby Stephens and Richard Armitage appear, together, for an entire season - it's like Cambridge Spies, but not, and with arrows).

Why, yes, I am shallow. And that's why I write a blog about leftover news and the boob tube.

Bits and Bobs for 1.14.09

Watching: Sunday Night Project w/ guest host James Corden
Listening: Love is Hard by James Morrison
Reading: Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

News of the Day:

• Woman gets the beatdown for sounding English. Stop the hate, folks.
• Sexting - sounds fun, if you want to end up in jail on child pornography charges.
• Time asks: Should students be paid for good grades? I ask: Why is education a commodity?
• Snuggies?! Otherwise known as a fleece blanket with sleeves. (The models look like druids trapped in an 80s living room.)
• Organ trafficking doesn't just happen in dirty Guangdong. Like the Jonas Brothers, it's going global.
• LIM College - NYC fashion school. Who knew?
• Barack Obama loves geeks!
  
• Prison Break gets the AX!! What are Mainland students going to obsess over now?
• Maybe they can watch 24 instead. But Newsweek thinks Fox should kill the clock. I think we should all watch Spooks.
  
• You might not see dead people if you drink too much coffee, but it may lead to hallucinations. I choose the caffeine-free pick up - Richard Armitage in Spooks.
• You can write a thesis about anything, including Peanuts (the comic strip)...which makes me wonder why I'm not writing about Spooks.
• Hollywood saved us during the Depression. Can Tinseltown do it again? You know what I think should be made into a movie...
  

Bits and Beards for 1.2.09

Watching: (gasp) nothing
Listening: lots of podcasts
Reading: Persuasion by Jane Austen

News of the Day:

• Touching. Mathematicians cry too.
• The secret life of bees: they can see iridescent colors invisible to humans.
  
• 100 pretty cool things we learned in 2008, including purple carrots, lions in the Tower of London, sinking pears, pigs' fear of dirt, rice gods, desert dust, ammo-toting bears.....
  
• A baby is delivered...on an international flight to Boston. Watch here.
• £3m car discovered in a garage. Happy New Year!
• Shop owner opens store for Boxing Day, sans employees. Pay by honesty box. Does it work?
  
• Exercise equipment powered by human sweat. Yum.
• The electronic sound of 2009.
• Fascinating. Sir Bernard Spilsbury - Britain's first forensic scientist.
• Why Obama's nipples matter. Come now, Globe and Mail.
  
• Philip Glenister - HERO.
  

I nabbed this quote from the Bottle Shock trailer. It's a movie about Napa Valley kicking France's ass in a wine tasting competition. Alan Rickman plays the snooty Brit to Bill Pullman's flannel-wearing American.

"Why don't I like you?"
"Because you think I'm an ass. And I'm not really; I'm just British, and well, you're not."

Beard Talk:
A couple weeks ago, I think Scott Mills had a segment on beards, as in hot beards v quick! shave the motherf*r off beards. I forgot who made their list of notables but I'm pretty sure they omitted the entire Robin Hood crew. So I'll render a verdict and that is the whole gang passes, including Keith Allen's Sheriff. It must be said that Jonas Armstrong's (Robin) can get overgrown, to the point that you could braid it and pin ribbons into it. Harry Lloyd's (Will Scarlett) 'stache is borderline child molester creepy but saved by Lloyd's charm. All beat out Prince William.

Hello, 2009!!

Watching: Robin Hood S02E011
Listening: BBC Podcast - Beyond Belief
Reading: Persuasion by Jane Austen

News of the Day:

• Crappy Christmas gifts for sale on eBay.
• 14lb baby. Truly.
• A somewhat smaller baby gets glue in her brain.
• Love amid the ruins after the Sichuan earthquake.
• Life lessons from board games.
• Phantom of the Opera, Part Deux. Good idea or bad idea? The Times thinks not.
• Sharks are wimps.
• Yes, more Rupert Penry-Jones. 5 Minutes interview segment on BBC about Adam Carter's Big Bang, 39 Steps, and his massively good looks.

Oh, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!