The Politics of Porn, British Style

And it all comes back to the British, first this and now this. Jacqui Smith, Britain's Home Minister, whatever that is, has gotten herself into a little bit of trouble. And it's embarrassing. If my reimagining of Bruce's album cover didn't give it away--it involves porn.

You see, Jacqui and her husband were on a business trip. Official, British business stuff. After a night out at the pub, or maybe just an afternoon tea, they went back to their hotel. And then they ordered five dirty porno films together. Oh, and they put it on her government expense account. What a pair of badasses. She's under investigation, but you know that nothing's going to happen. That's just not how the Brits do it.

What would happen, say, if Joe Biden was on official "don't mess with Joe" business and got lonely one night in his hotel room and tossed the charges for the latest flick in the Busty Babes trilogy to the good ole' tax payer? No more Joe.

That's the great thing about Europe--they don't give a shit about politicians. They don't care about their private lives, only about public policy. They separate work from play, as it should be. But in America, any tiny tidbit about a politicians personal life can't help but make its way onto one of the many 24 hour news channels. Remember Larry Craig? Yeah, he was that pervy guy who got caught doing naughty things in an airport bathroom. I bet if his name was Pierre Craig and he was in the French National Assembly, he'd be golden. But instead, he's donezo.

So what's the lesson here? What can we learn from Jacqui Smith, besides her hilarious penchant for government subsidized pornography? Maybe American's can finally take a cue from our neighbors across the pond--let's keep our noses out of the private lives of our public servants.

[Original Article via Huffington Post]

BitTorrent? Yes Please.

Here at Jiminy Christmas, it's not all fun and games. Sometimes I want to help.

For those of you who haven't been introduced to the useful, wonderful and highly illegal world of BitTorrent, well, you're missing out.

For the uninitiated, BitTorrent is basically the big brother of older P2P file sharing sites such as Napster and KaZaA. With these sites, you had one self contained program that served as your search engine and allowed you to download files.

Well, welcome to free stuff v2.0! With BitTorrent, you still have a program that downloads everything for you. But as far as searching goes, you're able to download torrents (the files that contain the data that will later become your movie, tv show, application) from literally hundreds of sites. But how does it work!?

Gizmodo, part of the Gawker media network and featured on my required reading list, has a great "how-to" guide on everything you ever wanted to know about BitTorrent. You can find it here.

As for the photo, that's Omar from HBO's The Wire. Certified bad ass.

Vince, The ShamWow/Slap Chop Disaster

I don't even know where to start with this one.

Vince from ShamWow is up to his no good tricks again. And by no good tricks, I mean his amazingly effective, Jersey shore-esque sales techniques. By now, everyone in the world has seen Vince do his thing on the ShamWow infomercial--I own three. Just kidding. Only one.

But Vince has put all that behind him. He's moved on. To the SLAP CHOP! As far as I'm concerned, this guy can do anything. The clip's below.

Top Five SlapChop Moments (mostly puns involving "slap" or "chop":
1. "You're going to love my nuts!"
2. "You're going to be in a great mood all day, because you're going to be slapping your troubles away."
3. "You don't have time to make breakfast, you're going to have an exciting life now."
4. "The onions with the skin. This is going to make you cry, you're making me cry!"
5. "And watch this! Taco's, fettichini, martini, bikini"




Oh, and by the way, this guy just got arrested for beating up a hooker. After she tried BIT HIS TONGUE OUT! Surprised? Yes. I'm surprised it took him this long to get arrested for something. I'm also surprised the hooker would get anywhere near his tongue. Poor judgment. At least he got a nice portrait out of it?


[Image via GAWKER]

Julia Roberts Being Herself

Julia Roberts. She's got everything--that smile, the roles in classic films like Pretty Woman, the insanely short marriage to Lyle Lovett. But now, she's just washed up and bitter. Her latest film, Duplicity, hasn't been faring too well at the box office. So this week on Charlie Rose, she said she doesn't want to talk about acting, because it BORES HER. Too bad Julia, you're an actress and you're on Charlie Rose, what the hell else to do you want to talk about? So just smile and show us that abnormally large mouth of yours.

Clip below:

Progress Report: Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

A little background: Jimmy and I haven't always gotten along. I mean, he seems like a nice enough guy. But when it came to his tenure on SNL, our relationship was at an all time low. Jimmy would ruin half of the skits he was in by laughing incessantly when anyone would say anything funny.

But now Jimmy's all grown up. Donning a sharp suit and talking with important folks five nights a week on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy's been working on filling Conan's giant shoes (literally, he's a goddamn giant) for the past four weeks. At first, I was a little skeptical. Even leading up to the show, Jimmy reminded me of one of those spoiled kids who's given every advantage (tutors and such), but no one really understands why. Really, they promoted the shit out of this show! But that's the past. Who cares? Everyone wants to know, how's it been going?

Pretty well, actually. It'd be hard for things to be going too badly--he somehow scored The Roots as his house band (one of those advantages I was talking about), an amazing set, and an all star line up of guests. And he's charming! He's everything Jeff Zucker could ever want in a late night host whipping boy. I mean, he played beer pong with Anna Kournikova last night (here), who, by the way, is such a mess that she deserves her own post. Despite the beer pong playing theme he's been keeping up (he played with Serena Williams too), he's really trying to change things up.

So he should be smooth sailing right?

Well, he's still got that laughing issue. Even when it's not in a bit and someone actually says something genuinely funny, Jimmy can manage to lower the funny factor a few notches by giggling a little too long. Also, I'm not sure who is writing his monologue, or if the writing is even the problem, but sometimes it's downright painful.

Overall though, I'm here to say that he's worth watching. I'm all for supporting late night and believe that he'll grow into the job, just as Conan did. So make sure to check out Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, weeknights at 12:37 on NBC.

"Where The Wild Things Are" - Trailer

With Obama pulling in bigger ratings than anything on TV to tell everyone how horrible everything thing is, here's something to really look forward to.

In a not so rare moment of procrastination I came across this just released trailer of a film that has seemed to be in development forever. David Eggers and Spike Jonze are adapting the classic children's book "Where the Wild Things Are." While adorable, this gave me countless nightmares as a child, so naturally I'm in love with it now.

Jiminy Opinionist: Billy Elliot - The Musical

One day on the job and I'm already plagiarizing. Opinionist is a feature on the wonderful Gothamist, a blog I respect, but have no professional relationship, casual relationship or even imaginary relationship with at all. I don't know these guys, but "Jiminy Opinionist" just sounds so right.

Periodically, I'll post a review or even just a series of nonsensical thoughts--whatever I please--about something. A play, a restaurant, a television show or a brand new Milton Bradley board game (though I'm a total Parker Bro's fanboy).

Today Jiminy Opinionist tackles "Billy Elliot: The Musical."



My Take: It's hard to believe that it took this long (10 years) for this crowd pleasing, sentimental film to be translated to the Broadway stage. But this year, after making mo' pounds in the UK then da queen makes knights (for another shocker, see the real mother england), Billy Elliot has finally come to America.

Great right? In these troubled times, with Obama's honeymoon over and the economy in the toilet, who doesn't want to pay $126.50 to see the upflifting story of a British boy who wants to learn ballet and go to art school rather than be a productive member of society and start a career in mining, a field that has no future and will probably kill him? Well, all sounds rosey, but it's not all rainbows and unicorns with this one.

I love British things. Ricky Gervais. Hilarious. BBC News. Informative and sometimes unintentionally hilarious. Fish and Chips. Delicious, but fattening. But Billy Elliot: The Musical, didn't quite do it for me. The usual problem with these things are that they're "too British." Like "Fawlty Towers," that old John Cleese British sitcom. Slapstick comedy in an old hotel with people who have funny accents? That's just too British. But since normal British things are good and too British things are bad, that brings me to this conclusion: Billy Elliot is not British enough!

Let's Recap:

The production, clocking in a quick THREE HOURS, feels long and drags on and on. I was constantly checking my watch, wondering why the number I was watching was even in the musical. There's a number where there are giant dancing dresses on stage during a dream sequence with Billy's cross dressing friend. Isn't the cross dressing friend wearing the dress enough?! Do you really need 15 foot dresses (literally) prancing across stage like some high budget peep show for giants? No. No you don't. And Billy Elliot doesn't either.

So the wait was for nothing. Well, that's not entirely true. Billy can certainly dance. Not much of a singer though--prepubescent voices don't fare too well when it comes to singing about poverty stricken coal mining towns, apparently.

Stay tuned for more Jiminy Opinionist!

Jiminy Christmas, f#$k that!

Jiminy Christmas, f#$k that!

This is something I'll do at least once a week on here. Basically, anything that strikes me unusually and unacceptably retarded, will be showcased here and ranted about for at least two paragraphs. Obviously, there are some weeks where I encounter more of these situations than others, so those weeks will earn multiple posts. Totally logical.

Just to give an idea of what I'm describing, here's a classic "Jiminy Christmas, f#$k that!" esque situation from a week ago.

McDonald's is an American institution. They alone can largely be blamed for the ever increasing childhood obesity level as well the limitless french fry filled smiles plastered across countless faces of young kids with happy meals in their laps. Over the years, Ronald and the Hamburgler have made various attempts to reign in the business the mom's who drive the Suburban's that transport this core customer group. Failed attempts include (but are not limited too) the McRibb, the Filet o' Fish, and countless other items that are certainly not what they claim to be.



Enter the newest perplexing item to grace the McDonald's menu--Premium Roast Coffee. This is more of a movement and, I mean, I get it. Starbucks is taking over the world. Oh wait, they closed hundred's of locations this past year and posted record loses. Oh well, still makes perfect sense.

If that wasn't enough, here comes the best part.

IT'S STILL MCDONALD'S. Across the street from the building where my classes are, there is a McDonald's on Broadway and Waverly. I've been told that this is one of the most successful locations in the entire franchise. So obviously, this place is pushing the premium roast coffee to rich, white NYU students like it's adderall (totally not as cool, for the record).

I was desperate. I ordered a small. My dialogue with the so called "employee." We'll call her, "employee."

ME: Small coffee please.

"EMPLOYEE": Small premium roast coffee.

ME: Yeah, sure. With half and half.

"EMPLOYEE": What's that?

ME: Coffee with half and half.

"EMPLOYEE": Half coffee half milk?

ME (defeated): Coffee with cream please.



Just...just wow.

Mission

Jiminy Christmas!

Living in New York is fun. You're a part of it all. There's great food, beautiful people, high fashion, thought provoking museums and lots of homeless people roaming the streets, simultaneously declaring their superiority over you as well as their undeniable bat-shit craziness. Wait. What? Jiminy Christmas! Bat-shit crazy homeless people? Yes.

And that's what I'll write about. Things that make me stop for a second and say, "that can't be right," or "my my, how delightful!" Because after all, it's the surprises in life that make things interesting...

No, that can't be right.

Yeah and I'll probably write about food a lot. But I swear it's not just another New York food blog!