how has this been around for nearly two months without my having seen it!?!?!?!!?

BarackRoll'd!!!



Brilliant...

i get that it's all a part of the game, but still...

You know what would be fun? If, between the Chicago Bears, NC State Wolfpack, and Carolina Hurricanes, I could enjoy one of my favorites without massive injuries to key players.

SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE sunday morning recap on a monday

Saturday night was probably the best show, overall, the SHOWCASE has put on. Most of the contestants have figured out where their strengths are and played them up big. Even as resident jerk Brice Powers, I had to give out three scores of ten.

I originally wanted to post a link to Travis' performance, but I don't know if the video really conveys the sheer, um, Travis-ness of it. Similarly, performances from Jenny and Paul (the other two tens that Brice gave out) don't work on video as well as they did live. So for this week's link I'm going to go with Jon's performance, which I'm retroactively thinking we all underrated.

Due to some of the language used, I don't recommend watching this video in front of people who can fire you, children, or impressionable house plants.

i voted today, but the political ads didn't stop

Andi says "go vote, it's fun and easy!"

two-timing is awesome, but only with blogging

There's a good chance that production on this bad boy is going to take a nosedive. Before you tear your garments, sit in ashes, and weep uncontrollably you should go check out howRDUdoin' and you'll get more of Ben than you can possibly handle. As a bonus, you'll also get the wicked awesome wit and wisdom of the brilliant Chris Conklin and playful barbs at the Charlotte Bobcats from Scott Jennings.

howRDUdoin.com is locally focused but, since I'm way bigger than the greater Triangle area, there's still plenty to go here. In the meantime, though, visit howRDUdoin.com early and often.

SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE sunday morning recap on a tuesday night

I can tell you how great the show was. I can plead with you to understand how hysterical the whole show turned out through a weak recap. Or, I can just post a link to the video of runaway winner Jenny Spencer teaching us about the virtues of professional pirating. I'm lazy, so guess which one I'm going to go with.

bookmobiles are for pansies

Every now and again, it's good to stop with all the political nonsense, comic book worship, and blathering about my life and use this blog for what blogs are meant for:



Showing my loyal readers awesome stuff on the interwebs. This, ladies and gents, is the biblioburro.

A whimsical riff on the bookmobile, Mr. Soriano’s Biblioburro is a small institution: one man and two donkeys. He created it out of the simple belief that the act of taking books to people who do not have them can somehow improve this impoverished region, and perhaps Colombia.

Behold it, tremble before it, and rock out to how awesome it is.

and now, i begin teasing the SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE

In order to provide you, my loyal fanbase, with enticement to watch this week's SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE I shall provide links to two of the better performances from the first two weeks.

Travis Pomeroy performing N'Sync's "It's Gonna Be Me" in week one.

Jon Karnofsky and the lovely and talented Del Flack performing a scene from The Graduate.

Good times. Watch this show.

winning the hearts of millions of joe six packs and one joe the plumber

Because general televised punditry will cover the rest, only two thoughts on last night's debate:

1. Senator Obama started droppin' the letter g from the end of his "-ing" words. We noticed this for the first time while he was declining talking about Sarah Palin, and thought it might be a subtle jab at her folksyness. He kept doing it throughout the rest of the debate, though, and now I'm wondering if he was actually coached into it because of the way the folksy talk has supposedly resonated with people.

It's also possible, I suppose, that Obama could have been doing this all along and I never noticed. It's something I'm going to be actively looking out for now, at any rate.

2. In the latest battle in the Republican war on all things intellectual, Senator McCain actually managed to talk about Senator Obama being eloquent in a way that suggested that eloquence was a bad thing. I should make it clear that I know that McCain was trying to say that Obama was obfuscating his intentions behind some well-placed words.

That's not what McCain said, though. He could have simply pointed attention to the phraseology Obama was employing and picked at it as he saw fit. Instead he specifically and repeatedly derided Obama for being eloquent. The message was clearly that since Barack Obama doesn't talk like you, he can't be trusted.

Because what we really need is four more years of someone stumbling over his made-up words to inspire confidence...

even i know that this is the most important endorsement you can get in this state

Dean Smith. As a State grad who was raised on Duke basketball, I will always acknowledge Dean Smith's place in basketball history. Also? I'm perfectly happy that his politics are very often in line with my own.

even when you see it coming, it's gratifying

Philly hates Sarah Palin.



What you should treat this as, though, is another indication that the McCain/Palin ticket is dangerously incompetent. They get a half-good idea, the idea to play up the "hockey mom" angle on opening night for an NHL team. Okay. Maybe put her in an important swing state to get their ever-tumbling numbers up. Still good politicking. Then, as they try to figure out where this stunt will work, someone in the McCain war room says "Philadelphia! It's perfect!"

Philadelphia, a section of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that is likely overwhelmingly pro-Obama. Philadelphia, where everyone gets booed anyway (even Santa Claus). What did they think was going to happen?

As a hockey fan myself, I'd like to think that Sarah Palin would get booed out of any NHL arena she showed up in. However, if she'd tried the same stunt in Columbus or with one of the Florida teams, someone might have been able to point to her appearance as a success. Then again, maybe she's such a hockey mom that she couldn't bring herself to show up in a non-traditional hockey market. Or maybe, just maybe, the McCain campaign is completely and utterly clueless.

SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE sunday morning recap

Last night's SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE featured the contestants trying to reenact scenes from the AFI top 100. While some of the contestants were left without ways to properly SPARKLE up their performances, Jon Karnofsky (with help from Del Flack) managed to recreate an iconic scene from The Graduate that was completely worth the price of admission.

Let me go ahead and give PT Scarborough his due for being great as Jason Aquarius, washed up actor and host of the show. He's been great, and worth the price of admission himself. Forgot to mention that last week. My bad.

Next week? The contestants have to teach the audience something. The challenge leaves more room for zaniness and gimmickry, so I expect a heckuva show. Be there, why don't you?

what the world needs now is axl rose

Hell hasn't frozen over yet, but the forecast is pointing towards it. It looks like what's left of Guns N' Roses has set a real live release date for "Chinese Democracy." There were those of us who thought that Axl's paranoia, perfectionism, fights with fashion designers, and rotating band members would never actually reach the point where Axl was comfortable releasing an album. Honestly, I won't really believe it until the Best Buys of America are full of people climbing over each other to get to the display and bask in the Slashless goodness.

at least i can be sure that Obama isn't going into the prevent defense

Barack Obama, according to nearly every available poll, is leading the presidential race by a pretty wide(and ever-widening despite some filthy tactics from 2008 McCain that would make 2004 McCain wonder if he actually did father a black baby) margin. So what's Obama's next move?

It looks like he's about to try and score the knockout punch in the form of 30 minutes of network prime time.

I don't trust polls very much in spite of my near obsessive checking of FiveThirtyEight on a daily basis. I do little dances as it looks more and more like North Carolina just might go to Obama(something I began to realize as a possibility back in July), but it's all still with a doubt in the back of my head about a country that saw fit to give George the W the presidency* because hey felt like Gore came off as too much of a know-it-all. The doubt gets deeper when I remember that the same country, after looking at the consequences of that action, decided to give him a second chance.

I do believe there's a fundamental difference this time around, though. This time, the Democratic candidate isn't an uninspiring John Kerry. This time it's a guy who's bringing new voters to the table and genuinely exciting people. Despite this, I still won't believe it fully until I see Obama named as the winner on election night.

If this TV time can be the knockout punch, though...if people tune into this and Obama opens up a lead in the polls so big that it passes even my doubting-because-I've-been-burned-so-many-times-before brain's margin of error...well, I won't mind doing the tiniest of premature celebrations.

*[normal claims about elections being stolen]

i'm not even going to think about what would happen when a kitchen knife, a torch, and a chainsaw are thrown in

So, two things about John McCain have stuck with me lately.

1) The country is in financial crisis. McCain suspends his campaign so he can only focus on the economy. Let's just pretend that this move wasn't at all politically motivated. For the sake of argument.

2) McCain thinks government spending is out of control. His proposed solution from last night's debate? Freeze all spending(except, of course, defense and veterans affairs).

So my problem here is that McCain seems to want to deal with problems by stopping the world. If this guy somehow manages to win the presidency, what's going to happen when he faces his first crisis? Is he going to shut the country down? He can't. When the $#!% hits the fan, a president can't just pretend there's nothing else going on. A president is going to have to juggle. McCain has conceded that he can't even manage running a campaign and delaying the passing of the bailout legislation.

Just spitballing...

i didn't laugh last night, but that's more due to my commitment to the bit than anything else

Last night was hilarious. The SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE is a six-week long talent competition that I should have been plugging here before the first show rather than the day after it. Still, I can't think of a better way for you to spend $10 on the next five Saturday nights.

This past week was the singing competition. I'm one of the judges for this thing, and all I was told was that the contestants were given a week to put together a performance of a former Billboard #1 single. Travis Pomeroy went first, doing an N'Sync song wearing an apparatus which connected him to two "backup dancers." Hilarious. My first thought was that everyone who followed him was just going to come out and sing...leaving them screwed. Fortunately, the other five contestants came through with gimmicky goodness as well and provided one helluva show.

As the "mean" judge for this marvelous talent competition, I had to pretend not to be having a good time. I also had to work as hard as I ever have to keep myself from laughing at a show with plenty of laugh out loud moments.

So what's on deck for this Saturday? The six contestants will have to act out a scene from one of the AFI's top 100 movies with a partner of their choosing. If the show follows form, I expect them to do more than just recreate great scenes. I expect them to SPARKLE!

joe biden won by answering questions and using facts

You can look all over the interweb and find all kinds of thoughtful reaction to last night's VP debate. I'd join in, but I have a raging headache from when I beat my head against the wall each time Palin either dodged a question or butchered the pronunciation of the word "nuclear."

we'll always have memories of people sporting faux black eyes

It doesn't come as a surprise, but I'm still sad that things didn't work out for Jeff O'Neill's comeback. I had hoped that, after a season away from the ice, something would click for him upon returning to Raleigh and he'd find enough of his former self to be a threat on the third line. It wasn't meant to be, though, so I'll let the old News and Observer Hurricanes beat writer Luke DeCock take it from here:

His appearance at the RBC Center on Sunday may have been his last in an NHL uniform. If so, it was fitting he went out on the rink where he had his greatest success, in the uniform he wore for almost his entire career.

History may record Jeff O'Neill as an underachiever, never reaching the promise that made him the fifth overall pick in 1997. But for a few seasons with the Hurricanes, he was every bit that good -- just not this fall.