Pop Culture Blog: Music, Movie and Humor

Leveraging low-hanging synergies outside the vertical fruit box since 1999.

Dogs And Cats Living Together – Mass Hysteria!


in Movies

This is crazy-go-nuts week in the North End. As soon as St. Anthony’s Feast ends, people start moving into the neighborhood as their September leases begin. And with them come all kinds of service personnel with the accompanying trucks – movers, painters, cleaners, rug shampooers, handymen, etc. The blocks are like one big, mean Rubik’s Cube – Person A screams at person B to “move their fucking car”. Person B moves it 2 feet so person A can get by, then moves it back just as person C arrives and the process begins all over again. Remember, these streets were made for horses. And that’s just what they’ll do. One of these days these streets are going to horse all over you.

OK – something else that comes to mind. Remember in Ghostbusters 2 they find the pink slime that reacts to human emotion? It apparently decided to build up under New York City in an old subway line because of all the attitude and distress located in the Big Apple. Somebody open a manhole cover on Hanover Street, pronto. This is obviously why they all blew up last year – forget that natural gas leak theory. We’ve been blaming NStar when we should have been blaming frigging Vigo. We may be in serious trouble – I need only quote the 20th century poet, and fellow Boston native, Bobby Brown for a more romantic explication of the situation:

Too hot to handle, too cold to hold,
They’re called the Ghostbusters and they’re in control.
Had ’em throwin’ a party for a bunch of children,
While all the while the slime was under the building.
So they packed up their group, got a grip, came equipped,
Grabbed they proton packs off their back and they split.
Found about Vigo, the master of evil,
Try to battle my boys? That’s not legal.

Indeed, Robert. Indeed. Listen, if anyone sees Gozer trying to order a puttanesca at Il Panino Express, get me on the phone. My sister had drinks with Aykroyd once, and I think I may be able to get his number.

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What is Web 2.0?


in

I really want to share some of these amazing new “Web 2.0” sites with y’all readers. If you’re uninitiated, Web 2.0 is defined as sites that “let people collaborate and share information online in a new way.” You’re all familiar with MySpace and YouTube – but they’re just the tip of the iceberg. The iceberg is large, and hidden mostly under the ocean of wet webiness or something.

This is the ultimate Web 2.0 site list in existence, and here is a great Web 2.0 ranking list by marketing guru Seth Godin. Some of the sites I’ve been enjoying are Squidoo, Digg and Del.icio.us of which I’m attemptimg to learn the benefits as they relate to search engine marketing, SEO and SMO. I’ve just bought a desk microphone so that I can begin playing with Skype, and Wikipedia is an incredible resource that you may have already come across. But again – large piece of dangerous ice just out of eyeshot.

If I had to pick one that’s been flying under the radar I think folks will want to check out, it’s Meebo. If your company has a firewall, or IM applications have been disabled by your network administrators, stick it to them with this “web based IM that lets you log into your IM networks from any computer with a browser and internet connection with no firewall issues. It employs technologies that make it act more like a desktop application, which dramatically improves usability.” Improves, usability – yet is shockingly detrimental to office productivity. Still, very neat.

The internet is still in its infancy, and it’s only going to get more interesting and fun. This really is a great time to be alive, and I hope you click through and check out some of the next wave in web functionality. Even if it’s just so I don’t look like as much of a toolshed.

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Friday’s Quizzlet: Greek Demons and Scary Spice.


in Monday's Quotelet

Appetizer: If you could have a subscription to any magazine, which one?
I really like the British version of Loaded. It’s hilarious and extremely risquee. I used to buy them every month when I lived over there, and my favorite feature was called Porn-a-Likes. Readers would send in porn photos with ‘actors’ who resembled famous celebrities. Burt Reynolds was a frequent staple, as were various members of the Spice Girls. I think I once masturbated to a Scary Spice lookalike until I realized it was actually Terrence Trent D’Arby.

Soup: Describe your living room (furnishings, colors, etc.).
Filthy, yet large and extremely comfortable leather couches that used to be white. A tower of DVD shelves and the accompanying television and player. 2 PS2s and a big stack of games. Actually, this is a little silly. Click here if you’re really curious, and then immediately re-shuffle your life priorities.

Salad: What does the shape of a circle make you think of?
A flaming, stinking demon-infested vortex leading to the 12th sub-level of hell, donuts.

Main Course: Name 3 things in your life that you consider to be absolute necessities.
Food, water and shelter don’t count anymore? Alright… British television, Greek food and hockey. Strike what I said earlier about the re-shuffling. I’m obviously living in a glass Tudor mansion.

Dessert: What was the last really funny movie you watched?
Midnight Run was on a couple of weeks ago, and I watched it in its entirety even though it was edited-for-TV and I own the DVD. That’s a little strange. Regardless, it’s an under-appreciated classic which proved DeNiro had frightening comedy chops over a decade before Analyze This. Charles Grodin is also perfect as the mob witness Bobby is trying to take cross country. “Jack, you’re a grown man. You have control over your own words.” “You’re goddamn right I do, so here come 3 words for you – Shut the fuck up.”

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