Gallery Homeland logo (link roundup)

I like the logo for gallery HOMELAND in Portland, which features "cutting edge art." Via.

And a few more links:

1. The winners of the annual Bulwer-Lytton contest have been posted. My favorite won the Detective category:

She walked into my office on legs as long as one of those long-legged birds that you see in Florida - the pink ones, not the white ones - except that she was standing on both of them, not just one of them, like those birds, the pink ones, and she wasn't wearing pink, but I knew right away that she was trouble, which those birds usually aren't.

Via these sites.

2. Pangolins are so cool.

3. Gameplay footage from Dead Space Extraction for the Wii looks great.

4. "Oscar winners Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker will star in a new film about two old lesbians who break out of a nursing home and go on a road trip."

*Previously: Homeland Security threat level bedding.

*Buy Dead Space toys at eBay.

Nikki Finke shames Variety into changing a headline

The initial Variety headline was "Golden Globes, '24' solid in ratings." Just a little misleading since the article by Rick Kissel said the ratings for the Golden Globes were "the lowest scores for a regular ceremony since NBC began airing it in 1996."

At 9:29 a.m. Nikki Finke wrote, "How absurd has Variety's Industry cheerleading become? Its headline says 'Golden Globes Solid In Ratings' ... yet goes on to report this year's show 'repped the lowest scores for a regular ceremony since NBC began airing it in 1996'."

Go to Variety now, and you'll see there's a reworded article by Rick Kissel with the headline, "Globes still struggling in ratings race" and subheading "Fewer viewers return to telecast."

Through the miracle of cached results, I present you the before and after:




*Buy "The Copy Editing and Headline Handbook" at Amazon.

“Kraven’s Last Hunt” in 30 Seconds (link roundup)

“Kraven’s Last Hunt” in 30 Seconds. A hilarious recap of a Spider-Man storline that I was way too young to read. Via.

And a few more links:

1. Photos of of a long line of people at Whole Foods hoping to get a signed bottle of wine from...Tool's Maynard James Keenan?!

2. Hand list of investment "experts" that don't actually invest in the manner they advise other people. Via.

3. The 10 Worst Quotes From The Huffington Post For 2008. Via.

4. The old snake in a can trick goes awry.

*Previously: Luchador wine.

*Buy "Cubicle Warfare: 101 Office Traps and Pranks" at Amazon.

New United Football League logo seems a little suggestive

I'm not sure why the UFL wanted their logo to be a star stabbing a crab claw (or whatever else is going on there), but the point's probably moot since the league will probably be DOA. (Sounds like the Arena Football League might be a goner too.)


Here's a few more random links:

1. NASA has ongoing major trouble with hackers. Here's one anecdote:

In 1998 a U.S.-German satellite known as ROSAT, used for peering into deep space, was rendered useless after it turned suddenly toward the sun. NASA investigators later determined that the accident was linked to a cyber-intrusion at the Goddard Space Flight Center in the Maryland suburbs of Washington.

2. 130,000 inflatable breasts have been lost at sea. The plan was to use them to promote men's magazine Ralph.

3. Video game companies hire professional reviewers to write in-house reviews so the company will know what last minute fixes are needed, and what public reviews will probably be like.

4. Another indication of how pathetic Heroes was this season:

When the fan asked if Peter would ever acknowledge Caitlin or express any grief over what seems to be her dire fate, Kring replied, "No, we passed it. We leapfrogged it." He added that when the idea of returning to Caitlin was brought up, they asked, "Really? Are we going to risk that? We have enough stuff to [deal with]."

*Previously: Office of Government Commerce logo sure is suggestive.

*Buy "Really Good Logos Explained" at Amazon.

Article alleging media manipulation by Angelina Jolie actually manipulated by Angelina Jolie?

An article in today's Herald International Tribune alleges that in exchange for allowing photographs of the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie twins to appear exclusively in People magazine, Brad and Angelina received several million dollars and were guaranteed positive coverage for not just that issue, but for years into to the future.

Interesting allegation you say?

Unfortunately, the article relies on anonymous sources for the claim, includes a vigorous denial by a Time Inc spokesman, and goes on to say this:

While all celebrities seek to manipulate their public images to one degree or another, Jolie accomplishes it with a determination, a self-reliance and a degree of success that is particularly notable. The actress does not employ a publicist or an agent. The keys to her public image belong to her alone, although she does rely on her longtime manager, Geyer Kosinski, as a conduit.

I keep checking to make sure that the paragraph isn't a quote from Angelina's publicist, but no, it really seems to be the article's writer talking.

*Previously: Newspaperman reminisces about spy for Scientology who worked at the paper.

*See a young Angelina Jolie in the movie "Hackers," on sale at Amazon.

Orson Scott Card sure is angry about gay marriage

Here's just a taste of his op-ed criticizing the legalization of gay marriage:

Already in several states, there are textbooks for children in the earliest grades that show "gay marriages" as normal. How long do you think it will be before such textbooks become mandatory -- and parents have no way to opt out of having their children taught from them?

It's a badly written opinion piece, full of lots of empty words like "obvious" and "absurd." But it reminded me of something I wrote last year: The little boys sure do take their clothes off a lot in Ender's Game.

Bad headline spotting

In light of my last post, I visited CNN and spotted this gem:

Questionable Headline of the Day: " Alba, Holmes fight against women"

Sounds intriguing right? Were they fighting women with different political views? Or maybe fighting zombie women? Alas, the headline is simply a bad one:

LOS ANGELES - What do Jessica Alba, Katie Holmes and Rosario Dawson have in common? All are A-list actresses, and all support V-Day, a global effort to end violence against women and girls.

Founded by Eve Ensler (of "The Vagina Monologues" fame), V-Day celebrated its 10th anniversary Thursday at a star-studded private luncheon sponsored by Glamour magazine. Joining Alba, Holmes and Dawson were Val Kilmer, Kerry Washington, Ali Larter, Gina Gershon, Judith Light and Jennifer Beals.

Since its inception, the anti-violence V-Day effort has reached 119 countries and raised $50 million to increase awareness about violence against women.

"It literally started from one woman's voice ... and it's exponentially grown," said Dawson, a V-Day board member who was inspired by her mother and grandmother's political activism. "It's about embracing being a female and reclaiming that."

Dawson performed a poem about New Orleans, calling it "the vagina of America."

Alba, who made her stage debut performing "The Vagina Monologues," also offered a poem at the luncheon. But first she warned the crowd that she was "popping out" of her dress.

"If you guys don't know, I'm pregnant," she said, as her fiance, Cash Warren, beamed. "You're all women. I think you understand your breasts are engorged and your stomach is getting bigger by the second."

Yahoo Link.

Headline of the Day from major newspaper: "Jamie Lynn Spears is not the first teen to have a baby"

That's an actual headline from the LA Times from December 31, 2007. Via.

Literary Review's Bad Sex Award (Post might be NSFW)

Ian McEwan may have been passed over for the Booker, but he may yet end the year with a gong in his hand. Although the climax of On Chesil Beach revolves around the fact that it is, in fact, an anti-climax, it is enough to garner him a nomination for the Literary Review's Bad Sex award.

He is joined on the longlist of what the organisers call Britain's "most dreaded literary prize" by Jeanette Winterson with a passage about robotic sex from The Stone Gods; Ali Smith for Girl Meets Boy, and Gary Shteyngart with an athletic description of his crass hero from Absurdistan bedding one of his many conquests ("Her vagina was all that, as they say in the urban media - a powerful ethnic muscle scented by bitter melon, the breezes of the local sea, and the sweaty needs of a tiny nation trying to breed itself into a future").

Read more about the contest. And here's part of an angry retort from Erica Jong, who was nominated in 1998:

I consider it an honor to have ''Of Blessed Memory'' (''Inventing Memory'' in the American edition) singled out as having passages ''too crude and anatomical to be read aloud.'' If I were deemed kosher by that classist, racist, misogynistic bunch of criticasters, I would consider it time to retire my pens and legal pads.