http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Mon, 2 Jan 2006 16:30:34 EST http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. 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Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/01/02/163034.php BlunderfordI've always been one for self-improvement, and as the year rolled over and I looked at the hairy fat that has rolled over the top of my jeans, I decided I needed to make some resolutions for the new year. 2006 is the year that everything changes for Blunderford, when I will be a better man, and the world will grow to love me.So, without further ado, Blunderford's New Year's Resolutions for 2006:1. Stop imitating Asian people.2. Buy something from Victoria's Secret to get back on their catalog mailing list.3. Reduce drinking to one six-pack per day.4. Buy a little rock with the engraving "Peace" or "Let it go" or some other stupid saying designed to bring me inner calm.5. Go down to the Army recruiting station and see if they're hard up enough to take a 235-lb., 42-year-old guy with a hairy back, poor eyesight, and slow motor skills.6. If #5 fails, consider seeking some other form of employment.7. See about splicing my neighbor's cable. I've been too lazy on this one: I hear it's really easy.8. Grow my own marijuana instead of being bilked by that motherfu**er Victor. You know you've been gouging me, Victor!9. Be more open-minded. See #10 for an example.10. Put something up my ass. Maybe those gay guys know something I don't. It would be wrong to die without finding out at least once.Feel free to steal any of these resolutions for your own 2006 makeover. And please do let me know of anything you feel might help me become a better person in the new year.More where this came from at Blunderford. Culture41721@blogcritics.org Mon, 2 Jan 2006 16:30:34 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/12/21/140955.php BlunderfordPoor old New Yorkers. The trains don't run and they act like it's the end of the world:"It makes you confused," said Sera Hargrevas, an interior designer who figured she would walk 150 blocks before the day was done. "I can't deal with anything else but walking right now. Everything is so crowded. People are so angry -- they are hitting you and they don't even apologize. . . . I'm a little tense."In my experience, New Yorkers regularly hit you and don't apologize--don't blame the transit strike."I spent the last two hours walking and the first 30 minutes trying to figure out how to get there," Profumo said Tuesday afternoon as he reached the halfway point. "I had to ask somebody where Broadway was -- and I grew up here."I should give this guy a break, because he's only 16, but I won't because that's the kind of person I am. If you grew up in the damn city, figure out the local geography instead of putting it all in the hands of transit workers to get you where you're going. What do you do when the lights go out? Curse the electric company workers or go get a flashlight for God's sake?Some judge is fining the transit workers a million dollars a day because it's illegal for public employees to strike. That'll help get things resolved. Did you think they didn't know it was "illegal," judge? You've got a transit strike because the transit workers obviously decided it was the only way to get some leverage and get treated better. If it's illegal to strike when you can't get a contract, what's the point of having a union in the first place?News flash, New Yorkers: your city is not the center of the universe, and each one of you is not the center of the universe, either, though in my experience most of you believe otherwise. Things are tough all over. Maybe you should call up the mayor and tell him to give the workers what they want instead of making them look like the bad guys -- or would it be too much trouble to switch off your iPod or stop obsessively checking your BlackBerry?Put on your hat and your gloves and start walking.More where this came from at Blunderford. Culture41324@blogcritics.org Wed, 21 Dec 2005 14:09:55 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/11/14/215258.php BlunderfordParents, the stakes have been raised!It used to be that your children would simply hate you throughout their teen years while you struggled to keep them from becoming complete animals and/or mothering/fathering children as a result of having sex in your rumpus room, also known as the humpus room.It used to be that you fathers scared away particularly skeezy boy suitors through glowering looks and by reducing communication to surly grunts.Wise up, Mom and Dad! Your old-school parenting style can now get you killed.Just ask Michael and Cathryn Borden. Well, you can't, actually -- they're dead. Maybe you could ask David Ludwig and Kara Beth Borden instead. Young Kara comes home late at age 14, gets in trouble from Mom and Dad, and her 18-year-old secret boyfriend says, "I'm going to shoot that mother... And that father, too."So he offs them and takes Kara on a ride that may or may not be forced, to Indiana, where three straight hours of cornfields and cop chases finally ends in the twisted Romeo and Juliet smashing into a tree.Don't want it to happen to you? Yours truly is here to help, with Blunderford's 7 How-To-Stay-Alive Parenting Commandments:1. Don't mouth off to your children.2. Share. Leave your wallet open on the kitchen counter -- this is a family, not a dictatorship!3. No comments about children's clothing. Exposed vaginas are in this year, so keep your trap shut about it. Maybe your prissy little mini-skirts will come back again, but don't count on it.4. Pay the kids' cell phone bills promptly. Nothing pisses them off more than their cellie being cut off.5. Pretend not to notice when you overhear your teen's conversations about threesomes or "friends with benefits."6. Put in a swimming pool, for God's sake!7. Be flexible! Add more rules to this list based on your child's individual demands.More where this came from at Blunderford. Culture39536@blogcritics.org Mon, 14 Nov 2005 21:52:58 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/11/08/080256.php BlunderfordUSA Today has an article about "Generation Y" hitting the workplace. As you might guess, the reporter and a handful of Gen Yers themselves describe this new generation of workers as a bunch of spoiled brats who are going to change the world, so the old fart dinosaurs should just hand over the keys to the castle."Get ready, because this generation -- whose members have not yet hit 30 -- is different from any that have come before."Uh, huh. This age group is moving into the labor force during a time of major demographic change, as companies around the USA face an aging workforce. Sixty-year-olds are working beside 20-year-olds. Holy crap! Never before in history have old people worked with young people! And 60 is ancient. I thought you had to retire at 42!!??"Generation Y is much less likely to respond to the traditional command-and-control type of management still popular in much of today's workforce," says Jordan Kaplan, an associate managerial science professor at Long Island University-Brooklyn in New York. Gimme a break. If the economy was good, like it was about 5 years back, Gen Y could get all proud and sassy, but right now if they want to keep a job, they'll learn to handle the "command-and-control" workplace just fine. Assuming they're not still being bankrolled by their parents that is.Here's my favorite line of this annoying article: "They're like Generation X on steroids." Every paper in the country is going to do an annoying profile on the Gen Yers soon -- hell, they've been waiting to do it ever since the Gen Xers got too old and started acting too much like normal adults to be called slackers any more.It's low-hanging fruit. Make a bunch of generalizations about a "generation" (and I'm not sure who gets to decide when a generation starts and stops), write a story about how they're so very different from the last generation, and then don't talk much more about it because in a few years they won't be that much different than the previous generation.Yes, younger workers are always going to be different than older ones, and the difference will magnify the greater the generation gap between two individuals. But to act as if a "young, smart, brash" generation is swarming the workplace, wearing "flip-flops to the office" or listening "to iPods at their desk" and turning the business world upside down is ridiculous.It was this we're-so-different-and-clever-and-fresh attitude that helped dot-coms collapse under the weight of their foosball tables and unworkable business plans. I'll believe in the new generational revolution when I see it.More where this came from at Blunderford. ed/pub:NB Culture39170@blogcritics.org Tue, 8 Nov 2005 08:02:56 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/11/03/081749.php BlunderfordI used to be afraid of Maureen Dowd. I thought she was a woman I couldn't handle, with that lethal combination of biting sarcasm and prim white pearls around her neck. I knew that MoDo had no need for me or my gender, and wanted a world made up only of herself, Alfre Woodard, Helena Bonham Carter and maybe Joan Cusack for comic relief.But I've changed my mind. Now I know different: Maureen Dowd wants me.Two signs in particular have shown themselves, lighting the path toward this truth. First, I stumbled upon an old interview Ms. Dowd did with Jon Stewart, our modern answer to Jimmy Stewart, or perhaps Stewart Smalley. In it, Ms. Dowd showed those silky legs to their best effect, her fire-red hair calling out me -- "Blunderford, I am fierce, yet I am woman!"And I was intrigued.And now, Maureen, you cunning vixen, a new book, Are Men Necessary?, which at first glance seems to confirm all my worst fears. And yet...And yet I know that in calling for a world without men, Maureen Dowd is simply trying to subjugate her very strongest desires in the name of keeping her street cred with the bald feminists of Main Street America.And yet a book cover featuring an alluring heroine in red dress and red hair -- representing Dowd herself, no doubt -- pretending to read her book but so obviously glancing amorously at a rugged man in a fedora and five 'o clock shadow. A man who looks suspiciously like yours truly, Blunderford Matthew Hensley.And yet while Maureen Dowd tries to be strong, she so obviously puts forth an image she can not live up to, an image of a woman who does not need the strong arms of a man to hold her tight, a woman who does not need the bread left open with no twist tie, a woman who does not want, need or desire a sweaty, snoring behemoth to roll on to her in the morning with stink breath and say, "My dick hurts for you, baby."And I know it is all a lie. I know that MoDo will someday soon melt into my arms and say, "I love you, Blunderford. Are there any more Oreos left in your pocket for a small-town girl with a heart of gold?"I will smile... and offer her my Double-Stuf.More where this came from at Blunderford. ed/Pub:NB Culture38972@blogcritics.org Thu, 3 Nov 2005 08:17:49 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/10/25/124903.php BlunderfordIf you aren't familiar with Prussian Blue (and you know you are, you dirty old racist pig), they are a couple of the cutest little musical twin white supremacists you're likely to see, and if ABC thinks it's OK to get suckered into give them Primetime attention, then I do, too.Prussian Blue gives proof to the fact that if you package it right, you can get a few fat white guys to show up to stand in a field and ogle 13-year-olds and say "I hate them niggers."According to the Prussian Blue Web site, "The early release of a sample from the song, "The Stranger," a musical adaptation of a Rudyard Kipling poem, is causing quite a stir on the racialist music scene." That's really amazing, because we all know how discriminating (pardon the pun) the racialist music scene can be.When asked about comparisons to the Olsen twins, Lynx and Lamb said in unison, "Oh, like, absolutely. We're working on a TV show called 'Full Stalag', and Lynx already has bulimia."I can't see the rationale for putting this little cult of pathetic whities on a network news show just because some demented parents decided their twin beauties could be the pin-up girls for a "movement" that ain't movin'. Is ABC so starved for programming that they have to chase down every freak show that puts up a Web site and says something controversial?Hey, maybe they'd do a segment on me.More where this came from at Blunderford. ed/Pub:NB Culture38442@blogcritics.org Tue, 25 Oct 2005 12:49:03 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/10/20/081827.php BlunderfordMaster of the obvious:Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff acknowledged today that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was "overwhelmed" by Hurricane Katrina and called for a buildup of the government's "preparedness capability" to deal with major natural disasters and terrorist attacks. Unfortunately, the next test of that preparedness capability may come this weekend, as Hurricane Wilma, measured as the strongest hurricane ever in the Atlantic Ocean, heads for Florida. Are the admissions of failure too little, too late to make the changes necessary in dealing with the potential aftermath of another Category 5 hurricane?When President George W. Bush was asked about Hurricane Wilma, he bit his lip, looked somber and said, "God is good, and the people of the Atlantic Ocean are good, and we will rebuild the ocean and the ocean peoples."When informed that Wilma was actually still on her way to shore, Bush chuckled and said, "Well, then let's get that Bam-Bam fella down there to turn her back, right? Heh, heh. He's a strong one in't he?" The president looked around and winked as Harriet Miers guffawed in the corner and sputtered, "Oh, Mr. President, you are just the funniest of the funniest and the bestest of the bestest!"The people of Florida put their heads between their legs and kissed their asses goodbye.More where this came from at Blunderford. Politics38192@blogcritics.org Thu, 20 Oct 2005 08:18:27 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/10/18/075458.php BlunderfordSylvester Stallone announced today that he will reprise his role as underdog boxer Rocky Balboa in Rocky 6. Thoughtfully titled "Rocky Balboa," the film will give a few nods to Rocky's advanced age, including:The main fight of the film will be a verbal boxing match with Balboa's wife Adrian over a Scrabble game, in which Adrian insists that "yo" is not a real word and that Rocky must take back his triple word score.Rocky brooding over his troubles while enjoying his favorite hobbies of gardening and Internet porn.An ongoing gag in which Rocky awakens repeatedly during the night to pee, due to an enlarged prostate. Rocky Junior (played by David Spade) graduates from college with a degree in product design and creates a revolutionary weightless boxing glove. Rocky serves as the glove's celebrity spokesperson.In a moving final scene, Rocky will confess to Adrian that he is illiterate after unsuccessfully attempting to read the memoirs of "that Fantasia chick" from American Idol.Pass the popcorn.More where this came from at Blunderford. ed/Pub: NB Video38069@blogcritics.org Tue, 18 Oct 2005 07:54:58 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/10/15/070631.php BlunderfordDespite the fact that I use much of my blog space ogling women and posting pictures of Siamese twins, this editorial makes me believe I am overqualified to be a columnist at a major newspaper.Richard Cohen (and I'll refrain from calling him "Dick") has obviously spent so much time going to D.C. cocktail parties and enjoying the fawning of the political elite who hope he'll write something nice about them (and would have no use for Cohen otherwise), that he is now attacking the special prosecutor in that CIA spy leak thingie, telling him, "Hey, bunshole, we commit petty crime here in Washington all the time. You're from Chicago, you should be used to that with your politicians. Go after someone who really needs to be brought to justice, like Hillary Clinton. Did you hear she and Slick Willie offed Vince Foster?"And Cohen gets all sniffie about the fact that Fitzgerald won't talk to him, won't tell him absolutely anything -- Does he know I'm Richard Cohen? This is an outrage!If you buttskins in the middle of the action can't figure out where your priorities should be as watchdogs of the government, then step aside and let the Blunderfords of the world run your paper. We'll work a lot harder and offer a lot more pictures of Natalie Glebova in a bikini.More where this came from at Blunderford. ed/Pub:NB Politics37929@blogcritics.org Sat, 15 Oct 2005 07:06:31 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/10/11/213159.php BlunderfordProving that anything goes when you want to raise money, UNICEF is using shell-shocked maimed Smurfs to show that war is hell.Bombs falling, Smurf bodies thrown here and there, Smurfette dead, fires raging all around, and Baby Smurf crying in the foreground, all to back UNICEF's fund-raising efforts for ex-child soldiers in Africa.This is all happening in Belgum by the way, so you won't get to see it. Sorry."It's working. We are getting a lot of reactions and people are logging on to our Web site," UNICEF Belgium spokesman Philippe Henon said Tuesday.Well, I like reactions and people logging on to my Web site, but I don't bomb Smurfs to get attention. (Of course I've written a few things that not everyone approves of, but that's another story.)To be honest, I don't think seeing Smurfs go blammo is going to make people realize the horrors of war and work to stop them. More likely, people are going to laugh. They're going to make fun of it. They're going to get copies of the ad and superimpose George W. Bush's face on Baby Smurf. To a new generation, this will be their first introduction to Papa Smurf.This is going to blow up in their faces. So to speak.More where this came from at Blunderford.Ed/Pub:LisaM Politics37777@blogcritics.org Tue, 11 Oct 2005 21:31:59 EDT