Friday, February 27, 2009

"Everything is amazing... nobody is happy"

Thanks to Ren for the tip!

Encore Presentation of Mad Men Season 2

I just learned that AMC will re-broadcast Season 2 of Mad Men beginning March 8 (one week from Sunday).

Yippee! If you haven't seen it yet, jump on the bandwagon. It's worth it.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Party like it's 1997

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Yet another fabulous TV show



I'm pretty sure I'm the last among all of you to have figured this out, but The Wire is AWESOME.

I recently finished the first season, and now I'm in the first half of the second season. I can't say to much to give stuff away (if you haven't seen it) and please, please, please don't reveal any twists and turns coming my way.

Let me just say that the show pulls no punches and is incredibly harsh but completely engaging. And, the main cop is HOT.

This is the first scene of the first episode of the first season of The Wire, so no spoilers:

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Credit card debt: $0; Associated feeling: priceless

Many of you know I racked up a shit-ton of credit card debt during my free-wheeling days in the Bay Area.

I was really in denial about it and as the years went on I was literally living paycheck-by-paycheck, paying minimums and hoping I wouldn't get laid off. The turning point for me was when I figured out that unless I got the debt under control I wouldn't be able to go to law school.

It was then that I had an opportunity to work remotely for a year and move back in with my parents. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and while I never thought I would live with them again it turned out to be an amazing opportunity. During the year I lived at home I paid off about 90% of my debt. The remaining 10% left when school started was manageable - I could pay more than the monthly minimum and then make some large payments during the summer months when I was working.

Happy for me, I got a huge tax refund this year. I'll be able to pay off the last bit of remaining credit card debt and still save a chunk for the future.

I mention all of this to say that it's possible to get debt-free. People file for bankruptcy with less debt than I was carrying - I wanted to avoid that route and I was able to, thank SBJ!

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Thursday, February 12, 2009

The International

I just learned that this film is directed by Tom Tykwer, director of Run Lola Run and The Princess and the Warrior. Yay!

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Painful

Oh what a difference three years makes:

2006:


2009:

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Guess who?

Click here for the answer.

Shepard Fairey

The artist for the now iconic Obama image was recently arrested for outstanding warrants related to graffiti, but here's a happier article about him, and how the Smithsonian acquired his poster:

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Moby on the CEO salary cap

Moby has a blog, in case you didn't know. Posts shift between music and politics. It's very stream-of-consciousness but I thought this was amusing:
could you possibly find anyone outside of a corporate boardroom who thinks that a $500,000 salary is not a lot of money? i mean, these ceo's and executives show up, fire a bunch of employees, outsource jobs to other countries, engage in shifty and illegal corporate and accounting practices, get paid millions of dollars, run their companies into the ground, come begging for taxpayer money in order to keep their jobs, and then complain about a $500,000 salary cap?? perhaps a degree of humility and contrition might serve them better than complaining about 'only' making $500,000 a year while accepting taxpayer bailout money? i guess if they don't like making $500,000 they could look for work elsewhere. i'm sure that there are tons and tons of jobs for chief executives whose last resumee item consists of: '2005 - 2009: ran huge financial institution. while ceo i oversaw an 80% reduction in my companies market capitalization, fired 70% of my employees, lost billions of dollars of investors retirement funds, had a hand in creating the biggest financial meltdown since the great depression, and had to borrow $85 billion dollars from the taxpayers just to keep the companies doors open.' yes, i'm sure there are lots of job opportunities for someone with that sort of work experience. or perhaps if the ceo's don't like the terms of the bailout they could get a job at kinko's. no work experience required, $8.50 an hour, 1 hour lunch break, and you can probably make lots of free copies when the manager isn't looking.

What happened here?




And he claims that his transformation into a hip-hop artist is not bullshit. We'll see.