Let's forget the "mostly-female" userbase that Buzz Media describes Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V warehouse Oh No They Didn't as having and ask the more important question: why on earth would any company enter into an "exclusive, multi-year integrated marketing and advertising partnership" with a website that straight lifts content from other websites with—usually—only a little "source" link at the bottom of each item? While those links probably do give the originating publications some good traffic, outlets like Entertainment Weekly or TMZ are trying to get people to come to them first, which, when one has the option of going to a clearing house of all possible sources, is probably not going to happen, which, of course, means less direct ad revenue on their own sites, where they presumably are posting content they paid someone to write. While the Eastern Cynic reads ONTD religiously, it's hard to ignore the difference between what they do and what, say, Del Posto Fluffico or Gawker do, which is aggregate stories with their own editorial voice and follow-up info, whereas ONTD seems to pretty much just copy and paste all of their content, add in necessary videos and pictures, and put an italicized afterthought at the bottom of the reposted article (although not always). Seems like a really good way for Buzz Media to get themselves sued for poaching content.
The "Barefoot Bandit" has been captured after two years on the lam from the law. Harris-Moore, who was in a halfway home until he ran off to allegedly start stealing cars, planes, and boats across the United States, was hiding on the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas, where he had apparently crash-landed the plane authorities believe he had stolen in Indiana. If Frank Abagnale has taught us anything, it would behoove Harris-Moore to start working on either a memoir of his exploits or a way to sell his insights into security to car, plane, and boat manufacturers. Given how many times he's been caught, that's probably unlikely.
While, to some degree, all of the Fluffington Von Posten is mindless, trite crap, Robert Lanza's opining about the meanings and answers to the great questions in life are a special kind of asshattery that should be banned by the Geneva convention just so long as we're all prisoners of the war of existence. He's the David Blaine of pseudo-science, the Carrot Top of profundity.
According to a poll on the NY Daily News website 80% of readers support "Don't Ask Don't Tell", with 53% believing "It's a flawed, but necessary policy" and 27% voting "I don't think gays should serve in the military at all." Good thing to know that our national policy on gays in the military reflects the will of some of our nation's most intelligent citizens. Maybe that's why Obama has yet to eliminate it despite pledging to do so many times. In other NY Daily News news, "mullet dresses" have been declared YUCK!
Hipp: still not sure why the Kardashians are famous.
Andrea: me either.
Hipp: as far as I can tell, one of them dated a football player and had a sex tape, and the other two are famous for being extraordinarily ugly wonks.
Andrea: Joel McHale always says, "Kim Kardashian, famous for having a big ass and a sex tape..."
Hipp: they're also the daughters of the guy from OJ's defense team. but really, why did anyone think anyone should care? why do these girls think anyone should care?
Andrea: I know it is not news that reality shows are staged, but that show is so painfully obviously staged.
Hipp: I've never seen it.
Hipp: I really missed the boat on reality TV, and thus, our modern culture.
Hipp: I watched the first season of Survivor, three-ish seasons of The Real World (before it became mostly famewhores), maybe one season of Road Rules.
Hipp: I guess Kitchen Nightmares counts, but that's not reality TV. that's Shakespearean drama.
Andrea: I watch Top Chef and 16 And Pregnant
Andrea: and Intervention
Hipp: God, I watched the Real Life: I Go To The Jersey Shore On Weekends All Summer And Am Well-Tanned And Slightly Metrosexual But Totally Not Gay And Definitely Into Stereotypically "Jersey" Girls. it was horrible.
Andrea: oh, True Life, you mean?
Hipp: yeah, either one is about as accurate.
Andrea: True Life is really hit-or-miss depending on the subject.
Hipp: I got suckered in because I was watching the one that aired right before it about people who cheat on other people.
Andrea: True Life: I'm Getting Married is AWESOME.
Hipp: why is it awesome?
Andrea: because the people are total train wrecks.
Hipp: all people are. just look out your window.
Hipp: could be worse. could be True Blood.
Andrea: that show looks awful.
Hipp: it is awful.
Andrea: I have seen, like, half an episode, and it was really silly.
Hipp: the main character is a fucking idiot. and all of the vampires are portrayed like normal people with slightly different problems.
Hipp: which means they're as boring as normal people.
Andrea: OH
Andrea: so I was making a doctor's appointment, and the hold music was that song that plays throughout American Beauty.
Andrea: WTF????
Hipp: could be worse. could've been "Brick" by Ben Folds Five
Hipp: or "The Freshmen"
Andrea: hahaha
Hipp: those two songs should be the hold music for abortion clinics
Andrea: is "The Freshmen" about abortion too?
Hipp: are you serious?
Andrea: yes?
Andrea: hold on, let me google the lyrics
Andrea: eh. still sounds pretty vague to me.
Hipp: still not sure how you outscored me on the SATS
Well, ladies and gentlemen, the time is here for what the prophet Bill Hicks predicted would be rampant "fucking in the streets": scientists have cultivated antibodies from an unidentified man, one of those storied few whose bodies have the ability to thwart the HIV virus, that can neutralize 91% of the 190 strains of the virus that causes AIDS.
"We're going to be at this for a while," Gary Nabel, director of the center and a leader on this research, told The Wall Street Journal.
Whatever. Let's do this thing!
Pro Tip: There's still no cure for HPV.
After a radio interview from June in which Republican Senate candidate Shar(r)on Angle advocated making "lemon situation[s] into lemonade," where "lemons" are understood to be "incidents of incest rape," the Republican has issued a statement that, against all possibly odds, makes her sound even crazier. Angle—a proponent of bringing back Goddamn Prohibition and noted name-misspeller—said that "If abortion advocates really believed in choice as they claim, they would be just as eager to present women in these tragic situations with choices they can actually live with for years to come. That was the point I was making." Wait a goddamn second. This comes right after Angle talks about "Obamacare," which is Tea Party code for "socialism," "Illegal Immigrant Healthcare," and "I'm terrified that there's a black man in the White House," and seems to indicate that Angle supports what the lunatic fringe of her own party would most likely characterize as infant death panels. Which, to be honest, is way worse than killing off grandparents who have lived full lives, but lacks the Republican platform of trying to get as many people out of paying taxes as is humanly possible, through any means necessary. Except for the Mexicans, who should definitely pony up.
Yesterday, the Greatest Basketball Player Of All Time™ announced that he was leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers and joining the Miami Heat, which is apparently a basketball team. While most of the Known World waited for LeBron James to announce his free agency decision from the 45 hotel rooms he rented out in a Miami hotel, majority owner of the Cavaliers Dan Gilbert was preparing to make history of his own by writing a scathing response to LeBron's departure in Comic Sans. Now, Comic Sans is out-trending LeBron James on Twitter, as is Cliff Lee, who has been sent to the Goddamn Warriors because, let's be honest, those dudes are never going to make it from the Bronx to Coney Island without his help.
More startling is that the top trending topic on Twitter at the moment—above, in order, Comic Sans, Cliff Lee, LeBron James, Cavs owner, and Gilbert—is Psychic Octopus, not to be confused with Psycho Mantis. Why? Well, Paul, the psychic octopus that picked Germany to win for every game in the World Cup except the game they lost, has been receiving death threats for what we can only suppose is the perception that he caused Germany to be eliminated from the tournament, and will now most likely be handicapping the Netherlands/Spain final on Sunday. Of the fourteen games Paul has made predictions for, he's been correct ten times out of twelve, with the last two—the World Cup final and the third place game being played this weekend—still to come. For the record, Paul likes Spain to win the final and Germany to win the third place game on Saturday. He generally picks Germany, though, so both of his inaccurate predictions have been in Germany's favor, which may have to do with the octopus desperately trying to save his own neck from reprisals at the hands of German soccer hooligans. It makes sense—after all, he is psychic. So why the hell didn't anyone ask him who LeBron would sign with?
In the latest news from the front lines of The Almighty's Never-Ending Scavenger Hunt for Meaning, scientists have discovered the fossils of "complex, multicellular" organisms that date back billions of years. Previously, the oldest known fossils were around 600 million years old, but these fossils—which were found in Gabon and thus have no chance of ever winning a World Cup—predate those fossils by 1.5 billion years, for a grand total of 2.1 billion years. Meanwhile, Americans have just learned that there's a country called Gabon.
Cheryl Cole is famous in England for being one of the members of female pop group Girls Aloud, which is kind of like N*SYNC, and for being married to and then divorced from Ashley Cole, a player for Chelsea in the English Premiere League, which is kind of like the NFL only with soccer, which is like football only without hands, helmets, or games that last until your eyes bleed. She's also been a judge on Simon Cowell's X Factor, which is like American Idol and America's Got Talent and does not involve Cable, Domino, or Scott Summers' brother, Havoc. Last year, Cole (née Tweedy) released a solo album, which is kind of like an mp3 only you have to pay for it, called 3 Words that involved American producers but no American listeners. Apparently, Cole collapsed during filming of an episode of X Factory (if a pop star falls on a reality show set and no Americans are there to hear it, does she make a sound?) and has since been diagnosed as having malaria, which is like a mosquito bite, a flu, and the DTs all at the same time, and hasn't been seen much in the developed world since the advent of window screens. She is expected to make a full recovery, which is a shame because dying of malaria is probably the only way she'd ever make it onto the American mainstream's radar.