It’s been a long time coming. Finally, after 50 years of enduring nationwide noise pollution, the House passed a bill yesterday that would turn down the volume on loud television advertisements. There’s even a cutesy acronym slapped onto the act: Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation, or CALM. Read the rest of this entry »
Before the main US trade show for cars, held next month in Detroit at the North American Auto Show, Los Angeles holds an annual display, bringing together many new models and concept vehicles for the public to see.
Overall, the show at the LA Convention Center is important for the volume of cars held in three cavernous halls. And even if Detroit still rules supreme because it attracts the world media for the occasional “world” debuts and the annual announcements of the cars of the year, LA is still a pretty fine show.
Here are some of the more impressive new models that I saw last weekend: Read the rest of this entry »
I defy anyone not to like this amazing clip from a 5-year-old boy in Japan who, armed with a ukulele, plays the hell out of one of the most endearing yet also annoying pop songs, Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours”. You must know this song –it’s the stuff or earworms, the kind of sing-songy, melodic dross that, according to Billboard Magazine, has spent the most weeks in the Hot 100 (76), received triple Platinum status and has sold over 4 million copies worldwide. Read the rest of this entry »
Along with Entertainment Weekly I celebrate the weekly wonder that is Jane Lynch, who plays the balls-to-wall coach on one of this year’s most vibrant new TV shows, “Glee”. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave it to the Chinese to provide the world with a graphic, yet hilarious animated blow-by-blow account of whatever it is that took place near Tiger Woods’ mansion in Windermere, FLA early last Friday morning.
The Chinese, you say? In case this even bears repeating, Tiger Woods is probably the globe’s most well-known athlete, and possibly its wealthiest. And the Cadillac Escalade crash that was heard around the world only underscores the enormous global reach that this suddenly notorious golf titan has. Read the rest of this entry »
Thanksgiving Day is coming up. You probably just took out the frozen bird and are already thawing the damn thing. Or you’re making plans to fly or drive to Grandma’s or maybe you decided to splurge for a meal at a restaurant. Whatever the plans, one thing’s for sure: you are going to stuff your face on that one day a year when you just don’t care about that pile of turkey and trimmings on your plate.
We honestly don’t know what more publicity Martha Stewart needs. Or why she has been on TV shows hawking maybe her 500th book of domestic crafty/wedding cakes/cupcakes/papier-mache cabinets or whatever it is that she pays professional photographers the big bucks to capture. We also don’t know why she decided to submit to a full-length interview with ABC’s Cynthia McFadden on “Nightline”. But there she was, in all her imperious glory, tight-faced sometimes, but seemingly not without some things to say.
But let’s back up a bit first. To a couple of weeks back, in fact. Martha decided –in what seemed like an unprecedented move, if you believed the ads that were hyping this—to go on the Rachael Ray show, and at the same time, Rachael returned the favor two days later, on the Martha Stewart show. Ray’s show, produced by Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Media, is far and away more popular than Martha’s somewhat more staid program –and this year Ray just snagged a Daytime Emmy for her show to boot. Read the rest of this entry »
Of course! What a natural combination! An operating system and a mammoth burger. The number 7. Oh, it’s Burger King and it’s in Japan! It all makes sense now. To celebrate the worldwide launch of Windows 7, Microsoft felt like roping Burger King for a weird promotion, available only in the burger-loving–and-tech-loving—country of Japan. For 7 days, all those who enter a BK in Japan will be able to sink their teeth into this outrageous 7-patty burger, called the Windows 7 Whopper for the not-so-reasonable price of 777 Yen (about $8.50 USD). Who thinks up these cross promotions? Read the rest of this entry »
Last April, KFC announced an “UNfry Day” to launch its new grilled chicken. All KFCs all over the country were giving out free pieces of chicken. We featured it back then, and even went through a fearless taste-test (reminder: it’s just OK). That promotion wasn’t such a success, even if Oprah herself got into the act, announcing on her show that people could go in to their local KFCs and demand the free food. The pandemonium soon followed. The long lines at my local KFC told the story: a lot of KFCs simply ran out of chicken. All this excitement for a perfunctory chicken thigh. Read the rest of this entry »
Your life has to really be in the proverbial toilet if the voice of reason who is pwning you on national TV is none other than Nancy Grace. And that most pathetic of all-American tools is the greasy, tight-Ed-Hardy-untucked-shirt-with-the flip-flops Jon Gosselin. His handlers apparently think nothing of going from TV program to TV program, from Larry King Live to The Insider and others, to tell his side of his very public split from his wife, the erstwhile Kate Gosselin. Read the rest of this entry »
David Letterman’s admission of an extortion plot and sexual liaison with his own female staffers at the Late Show on Thursday night’s broadcast was surely disturbing, but it also made for compelling TV. Letterman revealed that he had been blackmailed by someone for $2 million who had information about sexual relationships Letterman had had with female members of his own staff over the years. Letterman claimed he had testified with a grand jury and that he had been cooperating with authorities to expose the extortion case. He was also coming clean, so to speak, as a way of saving himself, his family, friends and co-workers, and, he said, his own job. It’s probably a good idea that Letterman was so forthcoming, but the way he did so in front of his studio audience was unsettling, at times humorous, to say the least. Read the rest of this entry »
This Friday, October 2, at 9:30 am PST (or 11:30 am CST), the world will know which city has been chosen as the host for the 2016 Summer Olympics. For those who live in Chicago, Madrid, Rio and Tokyo, the four finalist cities, they are especially anxious. Read the rest of this entry »
We like this one a lot. Starbucks has just unveiled a new and ambitious –and possibly risky—business strategy with the launch of its new “Via” instant coffee line. That’s right. Instant coffee. As in the Sanka or Nescafe type. The kind of coffee that usually belongs in a college dorm room and which, well, doesn’t usually live up to the normal, brewed cup. Starbucks’ new Via instant coffee, which was test launched earlier this year in Seattle, Chicago, London and a few other US cities, comes in small packets. You simply dissolve them in some hot water and, presto, you have a pretty decent cup of coffee. How do I know this? Because I actually grabbed some packets this past spring and tried them. Read the rest of this entry »
Last week’s trifecta of tacky behavior –Joe Wilson, in a historic first, heckling the President before a formal address to Congress, Serena Williams screaming expletives and threats at a line-judge at match point at the US Open, and a drunk Kanye West grabbing the mike from winner Taylor Swift at the MTV VMAs—was a strangely aligned set of events that have underlined what many have suspected about social civility in the US: it is rapidly withering away. Read the rest of this entry »
Cartoon by Carolita JohnsonHey, kids, I don’t know what the hell your nut-job parents were all upset about. The President gave a back-to-school speech this morning at a high school in Virginia, a patriotic message about dedication and personal responsibility that was beamed to all schools in this country.
Your parents thought this speech was tantamount to some propaganda shilling for Democratic social programs like that public option in the current health care fight up on Capitol Hill. This was supposed to be the speech where the force of Mr. Obama’s charisma was going to hypnotize you into becoming a free-spending and taxing Socialist, and indoctrinate you into the ways of Karl Marx. Read the rest of this entry »
Where did Summer ’09 go? It’s Labor Day weekend and we’re already making plans to go back to school or work after our much-deserved vacations. Time to pack up all our gear and tuck away all of our memories that kept us on the beaches and parties during these past warm months of summer. With it, we remember all those songs that somehow made the summer distinctive. Read the rest of this entry »
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