JeffRubinJeffRubin.com

CollegeHumor’s “Font Conference” The spiritual successor to...

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:17:40 -0400

CollegeHumor’s “Font Conference”

The spiritual successor to Internet Commenter Business Meeting.

In addition to the CollegeHumor Live Show on Thursday, I’ll be doing stand-up in Comix’...

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:48:42 -0400

In addition to the CollegeHumor Live Show on Thursday, I’ll be doing stand-up in Comix’ Occi’s Lounge tomorrow night at 7:30 at Faux Show.

Pat and I wrote a new Brain Filler - 9 (Very) Short-Lived Celebrity Talk Shows. I like using this...

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:14:00 -0400

Pat and I wrote a new Brain Filler - 9 (Very) Short-Lived Celebrity Talk Shows.

I like using this blog to tell you guys about interesting things we stumbled upon while researching. The highlight of this one was a quote from the Wikipedia for Alf’s Hit Talk Show:

On Alf’s desk is a large bowl of snack food (popcorn, peanut brittle, or the like) which the guests are invited to eat. Alf himself, being an alien, and a puppet to boot, does not partake.

This was obviously not the one that required ordering Steven Segal’s Marked for Death and Orson Welles’ King Lear. I’ll be very impressed if anyone can speculate what connects those two. Here’s a hint - that list will also include Blade Runner, Under Siege, and The Descent.

Congratulations Dorks, We Officially Took Over

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 15:01:00 -0400

Take a look at the top 25 grossing movies of all time. I’ve bolded films based on things that a middle schooler used to get picked on for liking.

1. Titanic
2. Star Wars
3. Shrek 2
4. ET
5. Star Wars Episode I - The Phantom Menace
6. Pirates of the Carribean
7. Spider-man
8. Star Wars Epiosde III - Return of the Sith
9. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
10. Spider-Man 2
11. The Passion of the Christ
12. Jurassic Park
13. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
14. Finding Nemo
15. Spider-Man 3
16. Forrest Gump
17. The Lion King
18. Shrek the Third
19. Transformers
20. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
21. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
22. Iron Man
23. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
24. Star Wars Episode II - Attack of the Clones
25. Pirates of the Carribean: At World’s End

Pirates of the Carribean is a Disney World ride designed to scare children and Harry Potter is about wizards, so I’m being pretty generous and I still counted 12. When Dark Knight Returns settles somewhere on this list, we’ll be at more than half. Can you imagine what will happen if someone figures out how to successfully adapt videogames?

Yup. I bet all those jocks feel pretty silly that they wasted their teenage years with girls or whatever. I already have several good guesses about who the villain in Spider-man 4 might be!

I was never really concerned about how JeffRubinJeffRubin.com looked, but after I saw CollegeHumor...

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 11:20:00 -0400

I was never really concerned about how JeffRubinJeffRubin.com looked, but after I saw CollegeHumor illustration intern Caldwell’s work on Jake and Emily’s blog headers I immediately commissioned one too. If you’re reading this in RSS, stop by and check out the fancy new artwork.

I’m not very good at articulating what I like and don’t like about illustration, so you’ll just have to take my word for it when I say Caldwell is totally kickass. You’ve probably seen his work all summer on CH, including this weekend’s Drunk-O-Vision V. He’s easy-to-follow at caldwelltanner.tumblr.com.

Orson Welles and Steven Segal, we must be working on a new Brain...

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:00:54 -0400

Orson Welles and Steven Segal, we must be working on a new Brain Filler.

Good luck trying to figure out what else I’d like to buy now, Amazon.

Show up early!

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:53:56 -0400

Show up early!

Digg Comments From When They Announced Heath Ledger as The Joker

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:11:00 -0400

(almost two years ago to the day)

While I will attempt to not compare him to Nicholson or “The Batman” joker, I just dont know if Ledger has that crazy and creepy side needed to play the joker. I will admit that I havnt seen too many of his movies, but the ones I have seen him in he doesnt play a creepy crazy guy completly off his rocker.
-EdLesMann

Please tell me this isn’t real. PLEASE!!!
-MiamiGuy

Ledger is wrong for this. He’s always seemed to be a very two-dimensional actor, not at all convincing, and here we have him trying to handle a character as deranged and maniacal as the Joker.
-Karyyk

Horrible news. I don’t want Ledger as the Joker. He’s just so wrong. He doesn’t even have the look and his acting is mediocre, especially when he tries to act like Val Kilmer.
-a7bat

Honestly, there’s more Brokeback Mountain jokes than negative comments.

Work brought me to Orlando this weekend, so I took the opportunity to go to DisneyWorld and...

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:58:54 -0400

Work brought me to Orlando this weekend, so I took the opportunity to go to DisneyWorld and Universal Studios. With limited time, we hit the Magic Kingdom in Disney and the Islands of Adventure at Universal.

A thorough report follows -

- I’m happy to report that DisneyWorld is a total class act. It’s a lot of little things they do right. many of which I didn’t notice until we went to Universal Studios.

- Disney: Free “FASTPASS” system lets you reserve a later time to return to major rides. This system is designed to evenly distribute lines throughout the day.
- Universal: $65 “Universal Express” system lets you cut to the front of the line and get the first seats at show. It’s free if you stay at a Universal Studios hotel. This system is designed not only to reward the wealthy, but also to punish the poor. It’s also advertised outside every ride in a way that relates to the thing you’re about to wait an hour for (aka “Smash Long Lines!” outside Hulk or “Devour long waits!” outside of Jurassic Park”). Universal isn’t alone, Six Flags has a similar system called Flash Pass.

- Disney: As far as I could tell the only things your admission doesn’t cover are food, merchandise, and the $1 old-timey shooting gallery.
- Universal: Midway games of the “hit this is as hard as you can and win a random enormous stuffed animal” variety really white-trash up the place.

- Disney: $2 bottled water isn’t cheap, but it actually beats most sporting events.
- Universal: $2.75. A little more gougy, though I suppose it still beats most sporting events.

- Disney: You can substitute apple slices for french fries, and there are fresh fruit stands everywhere. Don’t get me wrong, I still picked french fries. Still, I appreciated the effort. Of course they also have a McDonalds stand that sells only french fries AKA the best McDonalds ever.
- Universal: Hope you like popcorn and churros!

- We were able to complete The Magic Kingdom to my high standards of satisfcation by dinner, thanks in large part to the Unofficial Guide to Disneyworld. If you find yourself going to Disney, I cannot reccomend spending this $13.99 enough. It covers everything you might ever want to know about, and at 864 pages many thing you don’t. The real draw is the touring plans. These specific itineraries are designed to get you on all the rides while avoiding any major waits. The five pages that describe the computer algorithm they used to design these instructions were a joy to read. In a nutshell - get to the park early (they usually open at least a half hour before they say they will) and hit the major rides first. There’s a few wrinkles (crowds are naturally drawn to the castle, so Space Mountain is the place to start) but that’s the gist. The book thoughtfully includes a Universal Studios touring plan, as Universal Studios obviously doesn’t warrant it’s own 864 page tome. I quoted and referenced the book so often this weekend that even I annoyed me.

- Universal’s Seuss Landing is mostly for kids, but it’s worth at least walking around. The Caro-Seuss-el (their pun, not mine) looked especially cool.

- This warranted it’s own post, but don’t miss the Disney Davey Dance Blog.

- During a surprise parade featuring Woody and Jesse from Toy Story, I saw a grandfather holding his 3-year-old in his hands while (presumably) his daughter taped it with a video camera. The girl was dressed like Snow White. It was so much like the commercials, I thought they might all be animatronic.

- Universal Studios has a Bob Marley theme restaurant. I don’t pretend to know a lot about Bob Marley, but I’m pretty sure this is inappropriate. I wonder which of his shitty descendants approves these things.

- I know who the Disney characters are, but it’s a little unclear where Universal Studios draws it’s licenses from.
- Their new headliner attraction is based on The Mummy franchise. Sure we all saw those, but can anyone actually remember anything that happens in a Mummy movie? I think there was a two-level bus in the second one. (the upcoming Tomb of the Dragon Emperor screams “I was originally a different script, and they shoe-horned the Mummy franchise into me.”)
- Credit where credit’s due - Universal has done some great work with Marvel. Spider-Man and Hulk both live up to their namesakes.There’s a Dr. Doom ride that’s just a generic, “sit around the outside of a tall tower get shot into the air and dropped back down” but after a day of Disney it was fun to see something villain themed. Even Storm gets her own ride, but it’s basically the teacups.
- Universal Studios’ Toon Lagoon spotlights such minor characters that it’s almost embarassing. I love anything related to Rocky and Bullwinkle, but you have to wonder how many people recognize Dudley Do-Right on the Splash Mountain rip-off Dudley Do-Right’s Ripsaw Falls (to be fair how many people have actually seen the still-not-on-home-video Song of the South?). Toon Lagoon also features a loving tribute to shitty newspaper comic strips nobody cares about including Family Circus, Mark Trail, Cathy, Hi and Lois, Prince Valiant, and more.There’s even a place to take your picture with Marmaduke, a cartoon dog who appears in Parade magazine and is unrecognizable to anyone under the age of 70.

- Since we were only at Islands of Adventure I didn’t get to see The Simpsons Ride, but I’m willing to assume it’s not funny and I hate it. Sure The Simpsons are huge, but when it’s good it’s still a sitcom. It seems like it’d be impossible to combine a motion simulator with sharp comedy. This is the kind of thing the Simpsons would have made fun of in Itchy and Scratchy land. The Simpsons Ride replaces the fan-favorite Back to the Future Ride. Let me get this straight Universal, you think Back to the Future is no longer relevant but you’re still putting on the Beetlejuice Graveyard Revue?

- Not only are the robots in the Hall of Presidents boring, but there’s a 10-minute boring movie before you get the boring robots. I’m using the word movie loosely, it’s more of a slide show. The mostly empty theater was so optimistically large, that when the curtain finally goes up on the President-bots you can’t even tell who is who. A robo-Bush closes the show by delivering a long monologue without tripping over his words, which means there’s something a robot does better than the president.

- My favorite was probably The Haunted Mansion. Spider-Man was unlike any other ride I’ve ever been on.

- Both Disney and Universal Studios scan your fingerprint when you enter the park. Wait, what? I have some fairly strong beliefs about privacy, I’ll trade liberty for Space Mountain almost any day.

- Final reviews: I had a blast at DisneyWorld, but even after only The Magic Kingdom I’m pretty sure I’m good for at least a decade-and-a-half. Universal Studios is fun, but not significantly better than a good Six Flags.

FX has ordered fifty two new episodes of the criminally underrated It’s Always Sunny in...

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:07:21 -0400

FX has ordered fifty two new episodes of the criminally underrated It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. There will be 13 episodes in the coming-soon fourth season, and then 39 past that.

(source)

Fear of Disney’s invisible security force made me a little...

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 20:02:00 -0400

Fear of Disney’s invisible security force made me a little hesitant to participate in this Davey Dance Blog, but I’m unspeakably glad I did it anyway. They didn’t bother us at all.

(I’ll get some more pictures and videos up in the coming days)

FUCK YES.

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 23:17:29 -0400

FUCK YES.

As I’ve mentioned before, I often don’t know what...

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:10:06 -0400

As I’ve mentioned before, I often don’t know what I’m talking about on Play Value. That was not the case for this all-Dreamcast episode.

I especially liked Josh’s closing thoughts here.

From Wikipedia… [Van Halen’s Panama] was written about a car. According to David Lee...

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 16:48:00 -0400

From Wikipedia…

[Van Halen’s Panama] was written about a car. According to David Lee Roth this was because critics accused him of writing about nothing more than partying, sex, and cars but Roth realized that he had yet to write a song about cars.

I gave them my email address when booking online, and they...

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:04:00 -0400

I gave them my email address when booking online, and they immediately started sending me money-saving packages.

10 business days? Is someone approving these by hand?

Talking about will.i.am over IM is fun because Adium interprets his name as a website. He’s...

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 23:38:00 -0400

Talking about will.i.am over IM is fun because Adium interprets his name as a website.

He’s making his feature film debut in the upcoming Wolverine movie. According to this interview with MTV, during one fight scene he punched a camera, broke a lens, and scarred his hand. I hope they use that take for something.

In the interview, will.i.am goes on to say:

“But that goes to show you,” he grinned. “I ain’t to be messed with, because I break lenses!”

Discussing the scene a bit further, Will revealed that once director Gavin Hood replaced his camera lens, he had the rapper/actor run through the battle quite a few more times. “I missed a couple marks,” he laughed. “They’d say, ‘OK, come in, hit your mark, turn to the left … and, action!’ I missed my mark! ‘All right, take two!’ So I missed my mark a couple of times, then I got the hang out of it: Boom! Pow! It probably took me 50 times, but I got it. It was hard for me, but it was cool and fun at the same time.”

I’m concerned about the enviorment and rising energy costs, so I’m making a serious...

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:35:00 -0400

I’m concerned about the enviorment and rising energy costs, so I’m making a serious effort to feel guiltier about my air conditioners.

Video

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 22:29:35 -0400

Last week, I wrote about a page and a half on Lostpedia’s article of nicknames Lost characters...

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 23:02:00 -0400

Last week, I wrote about a page and a half on Lostpedia’s article of nicknames Lost characters have given each other.

Recap for those who are just joining us: Lostpedia.com is a Wikipedia all about Lost, and it’s contributors have seen fit to make an entire page that meticulously catalogs every instance of a Lost character calling another character by anything other than their given name.

I found the whole thing fascinating. Who does this? Thankfully, commenter Margeeka ran the numbers.

There have been a total of 597 edits to the list of Lost nicknames by 230 people. I theorized that while many people contributed, most of the heavy lifting was probably done by only a handful of uberdorks. I was wrong. To drop a buzz word, the workload has a long tail. The top 10 contributors only made a combined 168 edits, about 28% of the total.

Those top 10 are -
Jackdavinci (35)
Sockmonkey (28)
PandoraX (18)
Tricksterson (17)
Marik7772003 (14)
CTS (12)
Deming (12)
Eags (12)
Blue eagle islander (11)
Amberjet11 (9)

I find the process behind this and other well developed wiki’s fascinating. The tools for worldwide collaboration are so well developed that several hundred people were able to work together just to create this, a document of stunning unimportance. Think about all the things that could come from this system, the possibilities are infinite. If we get enough people, we might even figure out what the smoke monster is before season 5.

Margeeka, how did you get that data out of Lostpedia and crunch the numbers? I’m embarassed to admit it, but I wouldn’t mind running this on a few other ‘pedias I know of.

I don’t usually post MP3s, but I just can’t stop...

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 22:04:00 -0400

I don’t usually post MP3s, but I just can’t stop listening to King Harvest’s Dancing in the Moonlight. Even if you don’t listen to music on blogs (I almost never do) at least give the first 10 seconds a try. The electric piano is like taking a shower in a rainbow in the 70’s.

A lot of people think this is a Van Morrison song, and it’s easy to hear why.