"That's a pleasure I deny myself, because then you get into nostalgic self-involvement, and I don't think that would be good for me. I don't like to reminisce much, and my walls don't have photographs of me and the actors I was with, or any of that stuff. If you were in my house in New York, you wouldn't know I was in the movie business. It just looks like a regular house, like the home of a lawyer or something, and I try and keep that disciplined, and just work. There are so many traps you can get into, and looking back on your own work is certainly one of them."

However, Woody's pessimistic attitude about love kind of saddened me. He didn't have very positive things to say about love and you can read into that what you will. Of course, he's discussing love in the context of his current film Vicky Christina Barcelona, but it sure seems like the man whose characters - and, let's face it, who himself - always recklessly chased love has concluded that, in the end, true love is effusive.

But, maybe I'm reading too much into his answers. Tell me if I am .

Due to technical jargon and insider-speak, the official word is that Bob Ray is the “runner-up” in the Funniest Filmmaker in Austin Contest, but for anyone with half a brain, it’s clear that Bob totally won the shit out of the Second Funniest Filmmaker in Austin Contest.  Totally, totally won that shit!

Not impressed yet?  Well wait, there’s more: Austin has 1.5 million people and we’re assuming all of them are filmmakers.  So by coming in as “runner up” in the Funniest Filmmaker in Austin Contest, Bob Ray officially a waaay funnier filmmaker than 1,499,999 other filmmakers calling Austin home.  Suck on that 1.499999 million mofos!

Swing on by and revel in our glory and watch the funniest cartoon ever: Platypus Rex in: Hymenoplasty at www.CrashToons.com

Due to technical jargon and insider-speak, the official word is that Bob Ray is the “runner-up” in the Funniest Filmmaker in Austin Contest, but for anyone with half a brain, it’s clear that Bob totally won the shit out of the Second Funniest Filmmaker in Austin Contest.  Totally, totally won that shit!

Not impressed yet?  Well wait, there’s more: Austin has 1.5 million people and we’re assuming all of them are filmmakers.  So by coming in as “runner up” in the Funniest Filmmaker in Austin Contest, Bob Ray officially a waaay funnier filmmaker than 1,499,999 other filmmakers calling Austin home.  Suck on that 1.499999 million mofos!

Swing on by and revel in our glory and watch the funniest cartoon ever: Platypus Rex in: Hymenoplasty at www.CrashToons.com

Due to technical jargon and insider-speak, the official word is that Bob Ray is the “runner-up” in the Funniest Filmmaker in Austin Contest, but for anyone with half a brain, it’s clear that Bob totally won the shit out of the Second Funniest Filmmaker in Austin Contest.  Totally, totally won that shit!

Not impressed yet?  Well wait, there’s more: Austin has 1.5 million people and we’re assuming all of them are filmmakers.  So by coming in as “runner up” in the Funniest Filmmaker in Austin Contest, Bob Ray officially a waaay funnier filmmaker than 1,499,999 other filmmakers calling Austin home.  Suck on that 1.499999 million mofos!

Swing on by and revel in our glory and watch the funniest cartoon ever: Platypus Rex in: Hymenoplasty at www.CrashToons.com

Falls das Video hier nicht laden will:

Cosmopolitan Study

Ich denke, alle werden davon überzeugt sein, wie wunderbar nützlich Frauen in der Forschung sein können, und wie viel Nutzen Männer und Frauen, aus dieser Forschung ziehen können. Leuchtende Augen könnte manch einer bekommen, im Gedanken daran, was noch so alles in Sachen männlicher Sexualität erforscht werden könnte. Wie man allerdings auf die Idee kommen kann, weibliche Sexualität zu erforschen, also da kann ich die Reaktion der Moderatorin durchaus nachvollziehen, das geht ja mal garnicht. Was sich ihr Kollege denn da für einen Scherz erlaubt hat. Ich bitte Euch...

Chris Dahlen's review for the Onion AV Club is one of the shortest I've read, but also resulted in one of the most sweetly succinct snapshots of what the game's narrative and atmosphere are about:

But that story about the princess provides the biggest bang, especially in its conclusion. By the time you reach the final castle, the fragments of text that introduce the levels—inspired by Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities—put the whole experience in sharp relief. Your journey isn't about the girl, it's about your understanding—and misunderstanding—of yourself. This isn't a game about time, it's about memories, and how they can be repeated and eventually rewritten. And understanding this isn't meant to make you feel like a hero, so much as a liar.

Nick Suttner of 1Up did a nice job as well, putting Braid in context within the current boundaries of the medium:

Like Portal, Braid's short length can be disregarded in the face of its unique approach to storytelling and expansive ideas; it needn't be played through multiple times, but those looking for cognitive stimulation must experience it at least once. Excellent but intellectually limited as a puzzle-platformer, Braid is made truly divine with emotional depth and a bittersweet humanity -- a monumentally relevant game that speaks highly of its creators and their potential audience's tolerance for new ideas. To say nothing of an absolutely brilliant, emotionally devastating "ending" that proves that time isn't really that malleable after all.

Keith Boesky of A Tree Falling In the Forest also lauds the game as a milestone, and thinks Braid may signal a coming wave of promising independent titles available on digital download services:

Let's hope Braid is the first example of the power of good games and on line community. More quality in the independent space may eventually raise the quality bar across the medium. The independents are not going to take over the world, and they will not at all diminish the position of the tentpole front line games, but maybe in a direct download world, games like Braid have just as good a chance as the latest sequel to Shitman and Toiletpaper boy.

But Michael at the Brainy Gamer takes issue with generalizations like "Shitman and Toiletpaper boy," and he brings up something those of us who are thirsting for greater depth in this medium should keep in mind: it's not like Braid is the first game to bring about some narrative innovation:

[A] curious thing has happened while all this talk of narrative has been going on. Suddenly, we've decided that all video games up to this point  have proven themselves to be hopelessly incompetent storytelling devices. One needn't look far to find all sorts of well-meaning bloggers, enthusiast press writers, and podcasters bemoaning the sorry state of storytelling in video games, some going so far as to ridicule the medium for its misguided efforts to marry gameplay with narrative at all.

One rhetorical strategy for making this accusation stick is the old "straw man" argument: oversimplifying the opponent's position, then attacking the simplified version.

And not everyone is completely gushing over Braid. Look around and you'll find lots of valid critiques of the title (and they have nothing to do with the price - honestly, why are people expending energy arguing about that?). Over at Sexy VideoGameLand, Leigh Alexander's friend Sean thinks people are giving Jonathan Blow a pass on the disconnect between the designer's stated goal of marrying form and content, and the way he chose to tell the game's back story with text blocks the player can skip over:

It feels like an optional component to the game, which feels directly contrary to what Blow purports to be doing. I'm not saying that I have a better solution, and I'm not saying that it's worse than any other game on the market that uses cutscenes; but, it doesn't seem to fit into Blow's stated goal for his game, and so I don't understand the decision.

Charles Joseph at Game Design Advance agrees, and laments what he sees as possibilities left untapped within Braid's concept:

The challenges presented to the player are often very clever, but there is almost always one answer and one answer only. For a game with such fun tools, there’s very little tinkering to be done. Even the ability to refine your movements is mostly useless as virtuosity goes mostly unrewarded.

Braid’s narrative, about regret, acceptance, and maybe (spoilers!) alcoholism, is aided by David Hellman’s art and resonates with its mechanics, creating a game that is about reminiscence rather than literal time travel. To Blow’s credit, the story takes some unpacking and is ripe for interpretation. Unfortunately, it’s communicated primarily through text blocks that can sometimes be uncomfortably maudlin.

A lot of people have knocked the game's lack of replayability. (Which brings up the question: how truly essential is that trait to a narrative-heavy game anyway?) But Chad Concelmo of Destructoid disagrees (it's the middle of three reviews), and argues that Braid's emotional resonance bolsters its replayability:

I cannot wrap my head around the multitude of people criticizing the game for having no replay value. The minute I finished Braid -- and had time for its powerful conclusion to sink in -- I played through it again. And then again. Sure, I knew how to complete most of the puzzles, but playing Braid is never about getting from point A to point B. It is all about the journey in between, one that gets better and more meaningful the more you experience it.

And speaking of that, I'm still looking for some good discussions and interpretations of Braid's meaning (ie, spoiler-filled post mortem discussions). It might take a little while longer for those to develop. If anyone out there can point me to them I'd eventually like to do a roundup on that, too.

Of course, the question remains: Can a robot, after years of dedicated service, turn on its controller and write a tell-all book about how things went oh-so-wrong during its tenure?

“I’m out there playing my heart out every night, you know, who’s to stop me if I want to have an energy drink after ten every once in a while?” said Jonas.

The former boyfriend of Miley Cyrus wears a purity ring, but doesn’t necessarily want to be associated with that image.

“I’m into some pretty heavy things right now. I kissed a twelve-year-old on the lips in Dayton. Also, my brother Joe and I found a hookah a couple of cities ago, and though we didn’t do it, we definitely smelled it and took pictures next to it,” said Jonas.

He blames his blossoming rebelliousness on his insulin pump, which he started wearing two years ago after being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.

“With the insulin pump, it’s like I can’t even control what goes into my body anymore. My veins are an open highway. So yeah, I guess I’m a little depressed about it. After I got my diagnosis, I pretty much stopped wearing my retainer, and I got a lot of A minuses. Times have been hard.”

Nick recognizes his music as the glue that keeps his life together. Deeper songwriting on his latest studio effort, with songs like “Video Girl,” “Nice Girl,” and “Pretty Girl With Pretty Hair,” has served as ventilation for his frustration.

“At first it’s all ice cream and innocence, then the next thing you know a roadie is offering you a cigarette at a truck stop. I never let things get too far, but you can definitely expect some darker songwriting on the next album.”

The mentioned album, “My Heart is Play-Doh,” is expected to release before Christmas.

The Yahoo headline People Really Do Look Better When You Drink feels as though it was ripped right out of The Onion.

It appears that, "For the first time, scientists have proven that "beer goggles" are real - other people really do look more attractive to us if we have been drinking." 

Lesson:  Don't blame yourself the next time you do the walk-of-shame.  It's not your fault.

On that note, have a liver-soaked weekend!

Johnson & Johnson Introduces 'Nothing But Tears' Shampoo To Toughen Up Newborns

"We at Johnson & Johnson have been making bath time a safe and soothing experience for far too long," company CEO William C. Weldon said. "Years of pampering have left our newborns helpless, feeble, and ill-equipped for the arduous road ahead."

"It's time our children got the wake-up call that's been coming to them," Weldon continued. "It's time they cried their precious little eyes out."

Oh. This is fake? Well, go read it anyway at the Onion.

In the past two weeks, Obama has lost support from such groups as PETA, which withdrew its endorsement when Cooter punched a swan in the face, claiming it was "one of them mean ones"; the Clean Energy Group, which protested Cooter's recent attempt to fry a squirrel in a flaming 20-gallon barrel of diesel fuel; and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), whom Cooter mistook for an outhouse Monday and urinated on for 35 seconds.

Barack Obama Disses Only Black Friend with Jaunty Finger-Pointing

Kitten thinks of nothing but carpet being awesome all day.

Tangle of Jesus-shaped Christmas lights catches fire, kills 7

5,128 Things The Onion Hates About John Stewart’s Hair Going Gray

Aging Pizza Hut moves to a quieter neighborhood

5 scientifically proven ways to straight up jack a nigga

None of these are actually real, by the way. I have no idea if The Onion even has a submission system by which I can get rejected.I could look that up, but all fifteen of my open browser tabs are important stuff, and opening a new one might cause my computer to grow a pair of legs and kick the shit out of itself.

If one of you reading this gets inspired, I would really like to read your take on the article, specifically the one in which I learn to straight up jack some punk-ass sucka. I consider that inability my greatest failing in life.

When I told my girlfriend about the plan, naturally she was disgusted. But this is one of those things where all you can do is believe until the rewards start revealing themselves. I started off this morning with two hoagies, eight Eggos, and half a pack of bacon. I was stuffed! Michael must have to do something to loosen up his stomach and make himself hungry again, but I didn’t finish the news story, so I don’t know what that is. Besides a little sweating and chest pain, my first morning on the plan went well. I’m still waiting for some rewards, but I imagine that something really good will happen at our store meeting tonight. Employee of the month? Likely. It’s all about baby steps.

I thought, "Well that doesn't seem like an The Onion headline..." That said, some people do get news through satirical outlets, and it is often better than the supposedly "real" news nowadays... so maybe it is an Onion headline! It could be easily taken as an Onion article. Their "Area Man" headlines are like that — "Area Man Hopes to Score With Ann Coulter, Writes anti-Obama Book" is one possibility. And sometimes they bring real events to wider audiences through the satirical insulation ("Wal-Mart Wants Republican President").

Looking closer at the article, expecting to have a small laugh through further recognition of the massively screwed up state of the world, I noticed the typeface that the paper was printed in looked a little funny, as if they'd just redesigned The Onion again. But the formatting looked far to stuffy, and the other headlines were completely unamusing.

Wait a second. This is the New York Times, not The Onion! What could you get from reading something like that?

Nation To Try Its Luck Out West

Entire Population Seeking Greener Pastures

August 4, 2008 | Issue 44•32

THE FRONTIER—After having bravely endured rising fuel costs, unemployment, and a massive drought in consumer confidence, all 300 million Americans announced Monday that they will soon begin the long journey westward, abandoning their stakes in the crumbling housing market to seek the golden future that surely lies past the horizon.

Struggling to eke out a living for the past 20 decades, the U.S. populace has supported itself with odd jobs in the fur trade, tinkering, information technology, and pharmaceuticals industries, but has finally succumbed to the mounting pressures of modern life. The nation plans to strike out on its own come fall, when the weather's cooler, hoping to make its fortune and perhaps find a little patch of soil to call its own in the sprawling wilderness between O'Hare International Airport and the Great Pacific Ocean.

"There just ain't nothing left to do but pack what we can carry and head out West," said Arizona native Charles Kuhn, 42, who was recently laid off from his position at a fancy advertising agency. "Out past the mighty Mississip' all a man needs is a strong back and a good horse. Heck, won't take but two weeks under them wide-open skies to build a house, plant some squash, and wrangle a little graphic design† work with full benefits, genuine growth potential, and two weeks' paid vacation. Now that thar's the life for me."

"I hear there's a good steady creek and some open pasture just outside San Diego," added Kuhn, charging his cell phone one last time as he traced his finger along a crinkled, hand-drawn map bearing the ol' "I-5 N" trail he will follow to the California seaside town. "My cousin went out there and he's doing real fine. Real fine. Says they got good jobs with annual cost-of-living adjustments just falling out of the hills out there."

Leaving behind the woes of their bustling cities, small mining towns, large auto-manufacturing towns, suburbs of auto-manufacturing towns, and the economically stagnant state of Nebraska, the pioneers will set out across the vast Western expanse with nothing but the promise of opportunity and a few old resumés. Although it remains unclear what they might find in that savage territory, some sources indicate the move may bring a significant boost in self-employment, prevent thousands of bankruptcies, and allow settlers an opportunity to learn agricultural techniques from the Mexican folk who sometimes wander over the border.

Robert Wong, once an associate with Bear Stearns in New York, said the moribund securities industry has left him in such a financial mess that he has no choice but to take his wife and two pretty young daughters out West. The 52-year-old reportedly plans to ride out violent market fluctuations in the foothills of the Ochoco Mountains.

"Don't know what waits for me out there, but when you hear the dull roar of the Rockies, all the bank-foreclosure warnings and high-interest credit-card offers in the world can't keep a man indoors," Wong said. "Yes, sir. I've just got to make my last car payment, cash out what's left of my 401(k), default on [daughter] Emily's student loans, and strip the house of copper wiring, and then it's 'Oregon or the Grave.'"

The federal government has not yet issued any plans for dealing with the mass exodus, which is expected to have wide-scale economic repercussions in the abandoned regions, including a complete collapse of consumer trading and a short burst in hardtack sales. However, the House of Representatives will begin debate on bipartisan measure H.R. 3492, which would declare a state of emergency on the East Coast and provide tax breaks to those who remain behind, as soon as Congress reconvenes next month at a cabin in Rock Springs, WY.

"Everywhere across this land, hard-working men and women have come to see that anyplace is better than here," said Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), who is giving up his $169,300-a-year job in search of work in the railroads. "No matter how bad things get or how dark tomorrow may seem, the one thing Americans can always count on is the promise of a better life somewhere else."

At press time, the approximately 2 million square miles of land that make up the American West are experiencing the most severe rash of wildfires and earthquakes in recent history.

but i read it from time to time because it's THE FUNNIEST THING EVER.

please, do enjoy.

December 15, 2007 | Issue 43•50

WELLTON, AZ—Henry Leighty, a 32-year-old Arizona native and insurance claims adjuster, reportedly had such a huge crush on his girlfriend, Stacy Tompkins, 29, that he just had to marry her in a small ceremony Sunday which he totally dreams about every night when he goes to bed.

Insiders close to Leighty suggested that he probably wanted to marry her for, like, ever.

"Stacy and I are so happy," said Leighty, who mailed dozens of embossed invitations with little birds and flowers on them months before the wedding to ensure no one would miss his extra-special afternoon of girl-kissing. "For our honeymoon, we're going to spend some time [Frenching] in Saint Lucia."

Leighty's parents, David and Kathy, attended the ceremony, as did Leighty's two sisters, brother, and super-special someone, Tompkins, whom he adores so much he had to get a priest to make them husband and wife forever and ever—just like he always wanted. To honor the event, Leighty wore a tailored Armani tuxedo, hired a local string quartet to perform the traditional wedding march, and actually held his girlfriend's hand at least twice. Gross.

According to Leighty, the couple began planning the wedding shortly after their engagement last June, when the lover boy finally admitted what everyone already knew: that he couldn't wait to spend the rest of his life with a girl.

"We had been dating for five years, and it seemed like the perfect time," Leighty said, while everybody puked. "She's a really great person."

After professing a bunch of sappy vows he probably actually meant, Leighty open-mouth kissed his bride in front of friends and family and nobody even tried to stop him.

Immediately following the ceremony, the wedding party moved to the nearby Wellton Country Club, where the new Mr. and Mrs. Leighty—blech—joined their guests in a celebration of the couple's disgusting feelings for each other with food, dancing, and making-out. Witnesses say Leighty also hired a wedding photographer to take pictures that would last for all eternity so the groom could go home later and practice kissing with them.

Best man Derek Heidel said he "couldn't be happier" for the couple, whom he first met during his undergraduate studies at the University of Arizona and apparently likes so much he should probably just marry both of them in some stupid three-way lovefest.

"The ceremony was beautiful," said Heidel, who is either blind or retarded if he didn't notice all the sick touching going on. "I felt so honored to be standing next to Henry at this important time in his life. I know they'll have a long and happy marriage together."

Leighty, who witnesses claim they saw writing "Mr. and Mrs. Leighty" all over their joint checking account forms, said he "can't imagine" his life without Stacy. "She's got such a wonderful sense of humor," he said over and over as if anyone cared.

Leighty went on to say something like, "Ooh, this is my wife whom I love. I love her so much I want to marry her again because I love her so much, I do, I really do." He totally said that, reporters at the event swear to God.

Though the couple had initially planned to get married sometime this summer, the date was moved up to November because of Tompkin's mother's failing health. Despite some initial concerns that the couple would not be able to reschedule the event due to their hectic schedule of sitting in a tree and k-i-s-s-i-n-g, the two were able to successfully transition through the next phases of their courtship—love and marriage.

In analyzing relationships similar to the newly wedded couple's, experts predict that, within four to six months, Leighty and Tompkins are most likely going to do it, probably resulting in a baby in a baby carriage.

© THE ONION