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This is the blog of a one Ben Wilson, a Louisville, Kentucky native who enjoys baseball, beer, music, bikes, things that fly and good food. By day he pushes pixels and makes the Internet happen for a local advertising agency. His wife, Kelly is an Ironman, and his baby Amelia is the cutest thing ever. |
Great new Louisville ad made in town by a Doe-Anderson, Red7E and Guthrie Mays. Yes, I know, I work at Power Creative, but this ad is fantastic. It’s got some teeth (which are usually left on the cutting room floor). It’s part of a new branding initiative from Greater Louisville, Inc. Visit the website: ShareLouisville.org, or visit the original Louisville fan-club, Why Louisville. Why Louisville has a Beer Wolf. Share Louisville does not. Why 1 – Share 0!
I’ve always been a passive automotive fan. I attended car shows with my dad as a youngster, and pined over a Willys Jeep and a ’57 Chevy Nomad wagon later on. I’ve owned a ’69 Volkswagen (automatic stickshift), a ’74 Ford Maverick, and an ’85 Volvo 240 (with a crank sunroof!) All of which I’ve cared for and done routine maintenance on. I enjoy driving, and I enjoy the very idea of a car as an engineering marvel, a sign of the times and as a veritable playground of the imagination.
But, these feelings have always lain a little dormant, a little behind-the-scenes. I don’t think about it every time I get into a car and my Nissan Maxima has really just been my Point-A to Point-B machine for the last 5 years. I’ve been complacent.
That is until recently. I watch Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel most Wednesdays with Kelly – and about a month ago they started showing this program called Top Gear from the BBC. Top Gear is hands-down the best review show I have ever seen. Bar-none. They review everything from super-cars to compacts to the oddballs you’ll never see. Throw in ridiculous races (Ferarri vs. Jet Plane, Pigeon vs. Citroen), an enigmatic test driver named “The Stig”, tons of spot-on British humor, hatred of caravans, and an absolute heap of passion about cars and you’ve got it. It’s unlike anything you’ve seen or will see about cars and will make you think about hitting the apex next time you go around the corner of your street. I know it has me!
You can watch a clip of Top Gear where they review the awesome Ariel Atom either
here (80 MB WMV) or here (streaming). That is the car in which host Jeremy Clarkson is riding in the image above. 0-to-60 in 2.9 seconds. To quote: “My epiglottis is filled with bees! I’ve got so much nature in my hair you could film an episode of Badger Watch in there!”
Update: Further reviews and such (including another Top Gear segment where a guy from the Top Gear magazine drives the Atom to the Artic Circle and back) here: http://www.openwheelers.co.nz/newmodel/reviews.htm.
So yesterday morning, in a fit of very rare TV-watching, made even rarer by the fact that I was watching MTV, I noticed something odd. Good ol’ Music Television had a profile of the very un-MTV Sufjan Stevens. I have also just announced to Good Ol’ Cholly Dillon that I cannot stop listening to Illinois, Sufjan’s latest creation.
More on this at The Confabulators.
I’ll tell you with considerable pride that I haven’t given more than the compulsory two minutes of my attention to the Laci Peterson case. It really wasn’t a conscious decision so much as that is how little I watch network news and read the local paper. If it were a conscious decision to avoid this stuff, it’d probably have been more like a couple hours of my life wasted on a murder (notice I didn’t say “alleged”) way across the country. As a side note to my lack of awareness on this case: NPR’s search engine shows that they have only TWO articles containing the term “Laci”, as compared to the some 30 articles dealing with the “Artic National Wildlife Refuge”. I think that explains it pretty well.
Further, Louisville has had a bona-fide rash of murders in it’s own right the last couple of weeks. At least seven within the last week, totalling some 60 for the year, a figure that far outweighs the 2 people killed by Scott Peterson both in number and personal relevance.
As I heard the father of the most recently slain boy (17-year-old Johnathan Watson) in Louisville say this morning (paraphrased): “I just want everyone with the guns to know that, yeah, you’re the big men today — but know this — you didn’t just kill a boy, you killed a whole family.” So, while the death of Laci Peterson and their unborn child is certainly tragic and reprehensible, we’ve got 60 families right here in town that could use a little more attention.
After Bill O’Reilly (jokingly) referred to The Daily Show’s audience as “stoned slackers”, it would seem in actuality that O’Reilly’s audience is less-educated than the audience of The Daily Show.
I know a college education isn’t everything, but that certain refutes O’Reilly’s joking statement. It’s funny — I was watching “Fox & Friends” for a bit at the gym on Monday, as ESPN’s Sportcenter was showing football (yawn) highlights, and they interviewed Ed Schultz, a liberal talk-radio host, who used to be a conservative. He’s got a book out now, so he’s making the media rounds. They get to talking to him about his book, and quickly after a softball question or two, question him about a section in the book where he talks about his dislike of the Fox News Channel. I can’t find a transcript of that broadcast, so I’ll attempt to paraphrase… (click Read full story below)
Update: Check out this link ‘Daily Show’ viewers ace political quiz, and this quote.
“Daily Show” viewers are 78 percent more likely than the average adult to have four or more years of college education, while O’Reilly’s audience is only 24 percent more likely to have that much schooling.
Plus, the network noted, “Daily Show” viewers are 26 percent more likely to have a household income more than $100,000, while O’Reilly’s audience is only 11 percent more likely to make that much money.
So the guy watching Stewart may not only be smart, but may also be rich.
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“Well, I don’t hate anyone, but you guys have an overwhelming number of conservative/Republic leaning commentators or this network, and you portray yourself as ‘Fair & Balanced’, so what gives?”. Steve Doocy (the co-host) retorts: “Well, you are on the show now, hawking your own book! Why are you here?”. Schultz replies: “You invited me here.” Later, Schultz is speaking to how well Fox News has done in capturing market share, and keep people coming back. Part of which, he believes, is due to Fox News’ portrayal of itself as “Fair and Balanced” and yet having a slate of nearly all conservatives as hosts and commentators, thereby duping the general viewing public. Either Doocy or his co-host Brian Kilmeade come back with: “So you think the American public is stupid, Ed?” Wow. Obviously, that is what he is saying!
It’s that kind of retort that truly disheartens me about the current culture of news media. “Raising the level of political discourse” in this country has been a banner for many people on both sides of the political landscape in this country for a while now, but really they are just feeding the filthy need for drama that “the average American audience” seems to love so much. “Reality shows” really aren&#rsquo;t reality so much as real situtations carefully crafted and put into motion by TV producers, and most politically-charged news media isn&#rsquo;t reality either, I&#rsquo;d say. It&#rsquo;s just as fake, dramatic, and wildly entertaining as any reality show or professional wrestling.
I&#rsquo;m not a fan of either reality shows (mostly) or of professional wrestling, but I know people who are and they are (mostly) not idiots, but they like to be entertained in dramatic and exciting ways. TV has shown that it&#rsquo;s easy and cheap to produce these shows, so I guess it would follow that it&#rsquo;s easy and cheap to make dramatic and entertaining “political discourse” on the same level. But like I said, that&#rsquo;s not reality. It&#rsquo;s dramatized, entertaining reality. Politics shouldn&#rsquo;t be dramatized, sanded-down, simplified, or easy to swallow. It&#rsquo;s our lot in life living in a democracy to be well-informed, and thanks to media outlets like Fox News, you can be fed just about anything and be entertained by some verbal catfights as well! How novel! Some people can see through the slick packaging and tasty morsels of drama, and some don&#rsquo;t. It just so happens that the former are more likely to be better educated than the latter. Go figure!
C’moooooon. You know you remember The Wizard. 1986? Dwarf? Toymaker? The CIA? Yeah, I thought you did! Good to know I’m not the only one. That show was pretty awesome. Little dude toymaker gets called up by the government each episode to craft some sort of robot dog or RC helicopter or rocket-powered pogo stick. When I was 8 years old, that was my five-year plan right there, save for the dwarfism. David Rappaport, who played title role passed away in 1990, but luckily some good sport in Norway has maintained a site about just him. You can check out his The Wizard pages, too. Anyway, I thought you’d enjoy this little trip back to 1986 when men were men, and the Cardinals won the NCAA championships.
update: apparently this Rappaport chap was involved with the founding of “Frestonia“, and independent state in the heart of London in the late 70′s.
or so the internet would have you believe. kelly has recently become quite fond of The State alum Michael Ian Black, and whilst watching Queer Eye, I told Kelly that he was, in fact, “as gay as the day is long”. Of course, it now being winter, that was a complete and total lie. But, I figured I’d do my due digital diligence, and did a little research. Here is what I found:
Interview @ Kittenpants.org – a good one, too!
Michael Ian Black’s articles @ McSweeneys.net – McSweeneys is a great site, and the title of Black’s latest article is “Have You Ever Eaten a Baby?”.
Finally, go and check out StateMedia.net, where they have EVERY sketch by The State, organized by episode, and you can even download the stuff. Awesome. Also, the Kittenpants article hints at a DVD set! Oh my. I’m excited.
Oh, and Black *isn’t* gay, but he did play one on TV. Kelly just likes him because he looks like Jeff Davis, anyway, which is just weird, ’cause Black is WAY HOTTER.
(btw, did you notice that i said “played one on TV”. that’s an odd turn of phrase, really, like being gay is a profession or akin to being a different species)
The Beeb reports: US TV set for ‘Jesus wife’ storm.
A leading US TV news reporter has said her network is taking a risk with a news special which asks whether Jesus Christ had a wife.
That network is ABC and the show “Jesus, Mary and Da Vinci” is loosely based on Dan Brown’s best-selling mystery-history novel “The DaVinci Code”. Needless to say, the Catholic League isn’t really happy about all this — and I hope they try to “stick to the facts” on this, and try to keep the sensationalism to a minimum.
Meanwhile, Jesus is struck by lightning for the second time.
“Good Charlotte? More like Mediocre Green Day!” — Chris Rock.
It wouldn’t be so funny, if it wasn’t so true.
