Why aren't Science people funny?

I like science as much as the next guy, but it seems like so many of the science oriented radio or TV shows are simply unbearable because the host tries - and fails - to be funny. Examples of this are WNYC's (cancelled?) "Radio Lab", and the worst offender: Alton Brown's Food Network disaster "Good Eats".

The thinking is that most people think that science is boring so you have to entertain people while you teach. The problem is that for some reason science people aren't funny. Instead, they are "wacky". No one thinks wacky is funny except for 5 year olds and, well, science nerds.

Please science show hosts, you're not funny, so give it up.

Orientated

Femi Oke (sp.) on my favorite show, "The Takeaway" on WNYC just used "orientated". I know that the English invented English and all, but it just sounds retarded. Please use the far more elegant "oriented".

That is all.

Baby steps toward banning smoking in New York homes

Last week the do-gooders/fascist dictators at the New York City Department of Health announced that 57 percent of non-smokers have traces of nicotine in their blood. THIS IS A WHOLE 12% HIGHER THAN THE NATIONAL AVERAGE!!!!!

How could this be they asked? They already banned smoking everywhere except for...the home. So along with their hypochondria baiting press release, they urged us to keep a smoke-free home, signaling a certain type of apartment-dwelling New Yorker to start getting very intolerant of their neighbors who smoke.

Never mind that we all walk down some of the most densely populated streets in the U.S. on a daily basis. Never mind that people smoke outside more now because they aren't allowed to smoke inside. No, no, it must be that there is a remaining freedom that can be taken away from smokers.

Prepare yourself for a future where your bitchy neighbor can call the cops on you for smoking a fucking cigarette.

Can they just accept that some people do bad things to themselves sometimes and move on?

Crazy cult leader creates "Potato Day"

Oh hello, Andrew Breitbart. Remember me? We went to that rich, preppy high school together and you came and saw my band once and you turned into a crazy internet neocon and I said some nasty things about you and you had all of your commenter minions threaten me on this blog. I kind of thought we were done with one another after our little dustup in February, but you keep showing up on my TV screen.

First I caught you on Real Time with Bill Maher where you performed the thankless service of defending George W. Bush's legacy. The national near-consensus that Dubya was the Worst President in U.S. History could not dissuade you. I have to say I sort of admire your perserverance in ideological pursuits, unburdened as it is by facts or truth or common sense.

This week, Jon Stewart took notice of you and your (surely entirely true) televised complaint that your son's liberal pussy Obamatard school no longer recognizes St. Patrick's Day, but instead refers to it as "Potato Day". Haha that's funny because that would be like liberals deciding to rename Cinco de Mayo to Sleeping Dude Under a Sombrero Day.

Andrew, you dissemble, you demagogue, you divert. You've chosen to use your apparently vast inherited wealth to create a cult of wingnut internet wackos. You're not wasting your life. Even worse, you are using it to fuck up the world as much as your trust fund will allow.

We're still waiting for your evidence on the whole "Potato Day" thing. I've searched the internet high and low and all I can find is people commenting on your TV appearance. Then the comments turn into rants about how stupid "Potato Day" is. God you're good.

Nite Klub

For some reason I have the Specials' "Nite Klub" going through my head over and over. Maybe it's the following lyric:

"Hey hey I don't work,
'cause I don't have to,
I don't have to work,
There's no, no work to do."

Yup the down Stairmaster

There was a recent NY Times article about how the recession (have your heard about it?) has hit us well-educated people in New York especially hard. It reminded me of that legendary and much-maligned Village Voice cover from the early nineties, "Yup the Down Stairmaster". It turns out that well-educated people are suffering from this recession, like, a lot!

I would know (but I still get that $430 a week, yo, for a while).

Can they just reopen Save the Robots again, please? See you at 5am with the sawdust on the floor.

"The Takeaway" music

Can they please change the fucking music on "The Takeaway"? Bump bum bump bum bump bum bump bum bump bum bump...bloiip!

It's not hip. It's not cool. You didn't go to South by Southwest this year. Even if you did, you were too old to enjoy it.

Get over yourselves!

That's my take.

bloiip!

Slow Paseo

Maybe it's the generally slow pace of my life on the dole right now, but I am really digging this wine called Slow Paseo. They make a great red and white, it's organic and it's $6.99 at Trader Joe's. Why not get two bottles for your afternoon of drinking and hopelessly emailing resumes?

The "Blue Sweater"

Can we please stop hearing from this broad with her "Blue Sweater" book, about how rich people and poor people connect? Enough!

Julia Allison won't leave me alone

Those of you who read Gawker regularly know far too much about Julia Allison. For those who don't, where do I begin?

She used to appear on TV a lot as an "Editor At Large" for Star Magazine talking about, you know, celebrities, then she was a dating columnist for Time Out New York, now she is some sort of "lifecaster" who runs a blog about herself (natch) and two one other real-life Sex and the City character and they go to parties, dress up in matching outfits and get photographed with people. (Bonus: the blog requires you to navigate with a horizontal scroll bar.)

Basically, she is everywhere in a certain corner of the internet, is generally reviled, and has the habit as referring to herself as a "brand".

Okay, so I'm ducking into a doorway in the East Village this morning to light a cigarette and my eyes wander to this:




















Is this that Julia Allison?

If so, this would prove she actually is a real person, not an ad agency composite like Betty Crocker or Aunt Jemima.

Also, true fame can only (but may not) happen when you make yourself ubiquitous. If this is her place of residence, Kudos to Allison for putting her full name, sorry, brand, in her building's buzzer listing.

Julia, don't ever stop.