Family Guy: Peter Griffin Gets The Gay Gene

From Sunday’s upcoming episode:

Guil-tyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

Thanks, JMG (and Fox for embracing 21st century media!).

Robert Mugabe, You Are A Douche Nozzle

“I don’t see any reason why anyone would want old people.”

– “President” of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe, responding to the UK’s plan to provide additional assistance to Britons 70+ years old trying to get out of Zimbabwe, in an interview on state television marking his 85th birthday.

Wow delusional.

Photograph: Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Circa 1848

Sotheby’s is set to auction one of the oldest existing photographs of New York City and one of the only that depicts life beyond lower Manhattan:

From ArtDaily.org:

“A half-plate daguerreotype of A Country Home Along ‘A Continuation of Broadway’ (est. $50/70,000), made in October 1848 or earlier, may be one of the earliest photographic views of New York City extant. This surprisingly detailed image of what is now Manhattan’s Upper West Side shows a stately home atop a hill with its vast lawn spread before it, newly planted with evergreens and surrounded by a crisply-rendered white picket fence. In the foreground, the daguerreotype shows what is almost certainly the old Bloomingdale Road, referred to as ‘a continuation of Broadway‘ in the New York City directories of the day.

The date and location of this image have been taken from a manuscript note which was folded and placed behind the daguerreotype plate in its original leather case.

Early daguerreotypes showing parts of New York City are exceedingly rare. Of the handful that can be dated to the 1840s and 1850s, all but the image offered here show buildings in Lower Manhattan, and only one is believed to precede the present daguerreotype in date. This image provides a unique glimpse into a hitherto unknown Manhattan: the country estates beyond the grid of downtown streets, the busy traffic of Broadway just beginning.”

Just look at that yard!

Via Towleroad.

What He Said…

From the Prop 8 hearings.  Source.

My Current Desktop

My god I wish it was summer. Click pic to enlarge.

Google Suggestions: Smart Or Dumb?

Apparently, people who strictly adhere to the rules of grammar at all times are Googling some pretty important stuff… and those that use “2” for “to,” well… less so…

Kind of hilarious. Click above to enlarge.

Currently Playing: “Must Read After My Death”

For those of you looking for a non-“Watchmen” movie experience this weekend, you may want to consider “Must Read After My Death.” This documentary uses only the found footage left behind by the filmmaker’s grandmother – specifically, 300 pages of transcripts, 50 hours of audio diaries and dictaphone letters, and 201 home movies – to create a bizarrely intimate “fly-on-the-wall” experience. From the website:

Filmmaker Morgan Dews was very close to his grandmother Allis, but it wasn’t until after her death in 2001 that he became aware of an astounding archive she’d amassed throughout the 1960s. Filled with startlingly intimate and candid audio recordings detailing her family’s increasingly turbulent lives, the collection also contained hundreds of silent home movies, photographs and written journals. Using only these found materials, Dews has fashioned a searing family portrait that affords fly-on-the-wall access to one family’s struggles amid an America on the verge of dramatic transformation.

Must Read After My Death follows Allis, her husband Charley and their four children in Hartford, Connecticut. Charley’s work takes him to Australia four months each year, so the couple purchases Dictaphone recorders as a way to stay in touch throughout Charlie’s extended absences. A modern woman at least a decade ahead of her time, Allis struggles against conformity – against the conventional roles of wife and mother. She finds the recordings cathartic and, with the family’s cooperation, incorporates them into their everyday existence. When the family turns to psychologists and psychiatrists, their strife increases and the recordings turn progressively darker – even desperate. All the while, Dews employs the family’s many home movies and the seemingly placid, typically American façade that they convey, as visual counterpoint to the raw and sobering tape recordings.

Trailer:

The premise of the movie seems beyond engrossing although one can’t help to wonder what the grandmother would say about this film.

MRAMD is currently in limited release. If it is not and will not come to your town, you can stream it online through the distributor for only $2.99.

More: Official Site / NY Times Review / Reviews at Rotten Tomatoes

Starr: Any Right Of The Minority Can Be Taken Away By The Majority

The general consensus is that yesterday’s oral arguments in California’s Supreme Court on the validity of Prop 8 did not go well for The Gays. The LA Times summarizes:

An interaction between Chief Justice Ronald George and Kenneth Starr, who is defending Proposition 8, gets to the heart of the argument.

Starr argues that voters have an inalienable right to amend the state constitution as they see fit through simple majority vote, inlcuding “things that tug at the equality principle.” But George leans in on the question and asks whether, if Proposition 8 had specifically said that homosexuals had no right to form a family relationship or raise children, that still could be done by amendment? Starr replies yes.

George pursues it further, asking if California voters could remove the right to free speech? Starr says yes.

“Tug at the equality principle?”  Right. Could you white-wash that a little more, Ken? I think you mean, “create inequality.”

It would be nice to believe that this exchange will finally lead the general public to believe that gay marriage is bigger than a bunch of ‘mos who want to get hitched and does, in fact, have something to do with them. Unfortunately, I’m not that optimistic.

Is This John Edwards’s Kid?

Is there a resemblance or is it just me? I can never see the resemblance between infant and parent but I feel like there’s something there…

The National Enquirer continues to follow the story – stating that Edwards has confessed to his wife that the child is his – which was picked up by Fox News (who else?).

Maybe we should ask John Edward:

(Hey guapo!)

Billy Crudup On “The Daily Show”

All “Watchmen” drama aside, Billy Crudup was completely hilarious on the Daily Show last night and answered the question on everyone’s mind: “How much of that glowing blue penis is yours?” Watch:

Vodpod videos no longer available.

I think the only other thing I’ve seen Crudup in was “Big Fish.” According to his Wikipedia page (it’s always right!), he left his girlfriend Mary-Louise Parker when she was seven months pregnant with his bebe.  Ouch.