http://www.metafilter.com/87667/he-of-the-weird-al-hair-and-santa-claus-beard

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gawker/full/~3/JFNtavkDivc/economists-prove-new-yorkers-are-unhappy-because-their-state-objectively-sucks

Research Question: Why are New Yorkers miserable? Hypothesis: Because New York is not a pleasant place to live.

New Yorkers ranked last in a CDC study comparing happiness across the states, which will not surprise anyone who has taken the subway on a weekday morning. More surprising is that Florida, that perversion of man and nature, is the happiest state! (Is it the python infestations or the meth hotspots that fill Florida residents with joy?)

The AP reports that two economists wanted to know what was causing people to be miserable or happy in different states like this. So, they compared the CDC's 'subjective' happiness data -with 'objective' measures of quality-of-life, like weather, the size and number of parks, commuting time and taxes. (Of course economists would count taxes as quality-of-life issue.)

Their findings are completely obvious and unsurprising in the way that most social science is:

The places where people are most likely to report happiness also tend to rate high on studies comparing things like climate, crime rates, air quality and schools.

Wait—so people don't like being choked by smog or getting mugged!? The economists who wrote the paper think this is a big deal because, even though the results were totally obvious:

This is the first objective validation of 'happiness' data," which is something he says economists have been reluctant to use in the past.

"Very loosely, you could say that we prove that happiness data are 'true,' - such data have genuine objective informational content," he said.

So, New Yorkers, you are unhappy because your state—and by association, your life—"truly" sucks. Thank you, economics!

Although this entire line of inquiry is based on the false assumption that New Yorkers give a shit about being happy.

(Editor's Note: I originally wrote this on Thursday, but due to technical difficulties it didn't post! That is why this post is about an article that is so ancient, by Internet standards.)

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gawker/full/~3/HphDujc7TqE/the-perils-of-telecommuting-there-are-no-sick-days

The federal government declares tomorrow SNOWCLOSED. So...we don't have to go to work, right?

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gawker/full/~3/0hEfWUhvaiE/who-is-simon-monjack

Brittany Murphy's life was cut short at 32 when she passed away this morning. The latest piece of news is that her husband, Simon Monjack, reportedly told Cedars-Sinai staffers that he didn't want there to be an autopsy. Who?

Murphy and Monjack got married in May, 2007, in a private ceremony. Previous to that, Murphy had been engaged and in relationships that ended quietly and without much explanation. Most publicly, she was engaged to production and management company The Firm CEO Jeff Kwatinetz (Kawtinetz left the company last year). In 2005, Murphy was engaged to Joe Macaluso, who worked with Murphy as the Production Best Boy on Little Black Book (he now works in Hollywood as a Key Grip). In an interview with OK Magazine, Murphy once had this to say about Monjack:

"We first met when I was 17 years old. We checked in with each other throughout the years and remained friends. The easiest decision I ever had in my life was getting married...He's flown around the world to make sure we spend every single night together."

When Monjack and Murphy got married, it was, for whatever reason, very, very quiet:

The hush-hush ceremony-and reluctant confirmation that a ceremony even took place-follows an equally quiet courtship. Murphy and Monjack didn't make any public appearances together and never announced their engagement, which, based on her dating timeline, had to have taken place within the past eight months.

At the scene of Murphy's death, it was Muphy's mother who discovered her. Monjack was noted as being "dazed" on the scene:

Murphy's husband, wearing pajama bottoms and no shoes, appeared ''dazed'' as firefighters tried to save her, Staples said. ''It's just tragic,'' she added.

And TMZ snapped him returning home. By any measure, anybody in any kind of grieving mode is absolutely entitled to feel as dazed or as frenetic or look however the hell they want.

But there's no question the circumstances surrounding this are, well, cloudy. Monjack concerning himself with whether or not there's an autopsy's certainly one of them. Another: there's almost no information out there on Monjack besides assertions of his "shady" nature on straight-Hollywood gossip sights that—while certainly trafficking in all kinds of rumors—all turn up the same kind of thing. One website's tipsters let loose on him: he drained his own family's cash on his film, he picked up women on J-Date, and he has some kind of reputation for a "con." They also came up with this:

He told me he was constantly tracked by the Customs & Excise in England - apparently he would tip them off about gun/drug smuggling on his aircraft and Air India. This is perhaps the funniest. He told me he had a homosexual affair with Damian Hirst when they lived in N.Y. (Broom Street). When they broke up, Damian gave him a picture entitled "I Feel Fine." Simon's ex-wife, Marcia, had damaged the picture, so Simon repaired it with glue (!?) He was frequently calling sex lines in Gambia.

So...who is this guy? Simon Monjack's a screenwriter who hasn't done much work recently. He was behind Factory Girl and did indeed write and direct a film called Two Days, Nine Lives that wasn't very successful. But Murphy's friends have been warning her off him for a while. The guy's had a past, and a substantial one at that:

Among his troubles: two warrants for his arrest in Virginia for alleged credit-card theft and fraud; an unpaid $6,087 legal bill, and a $502,910 judgment against him by a British investment firm. And Us Weekly reports in its new issue that Monjack gave his former fiancée, British film producer Taira Rafiq, an engagement ring he had told her was a diamond but was, in fact, cubic zirconia. "Taira tried to get in touch with Brittany to warn her," a Rafiq pal tells Us.

Where there's smoke, there's fire. Murphy was reportedly diabetic, and we're hearing from a tipster that she had heart conditions that would've prevented her from doing any kind of drugs that would've resulted in an increased heart rate. There're any number of possibilities here.

But some of them involve Simon Monjack, who's about to enter a world of unprecedented scrutiny. The Big Yellow Taxi law couldn't be applied more, here: fans of film didn't know what they had until it was gone. Monjack can mourn, and be presumed innocent of any wrongdoing in regards to influencing Murphy's life. In all fairness, he can even be assumed to be something that made Murphy very, very happy.

But he's going to have to answer for quotes like the autopsy one, and the incident at LAX coming from Puerto Rico last month in the upcoming days. Let's hope he has the right ones, for everyone's sake. Because from the sound of it...

On whether she wants kids: "I hope to have a few. I've always loved kids and babies and always wanted to be a mom. Hopefully soon."

...Brittany Murphy had no plans of leaving this world yesterday, or in the foreseeable future. People are going to want to know why it happened.

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gawker/full/~3/pRUJkfgEXiw/rage-against-the-machine-bests-simon-cowells-pop-music-robots-in-sony-pissing-contest

"Guerilla Radio," indeed. Remember angry 90s WTO-protest mascots Rage Against the Machine? Well, they and their fans decided to take on British holiday radio playlists dominated The Pop Music-Industrial-Complex Machine. And they won, pissing off Simon Cowell in the process.

See, Rage is pissed off at Simon Cowell for doing the same thing he's always done, which is manufacture perfect pop songs that are like pouring Sweet-N-Low in your ears: it's not natural and it probably gives rats cancer. That said, he makes a shitton of money off of it, so nobody's complaining. Except for Rage. Because that's their job. To rage against the machine. It's a fitting name! So they got on the radio last week and got really pissed. Zach de la Rocha and Tom Morello had things to say.

They are currently the subject of a Facebook campaign to get their 1992 hit to the festive top spot ahead of 18-year-old Joe's version of The Climb. Speaking about the race, de la Rocha attacked Cowell, saying: "Simon is an interesting character. He seems to have profited greatly off humiliating people on live television and has a unique position of capturing the attention of people on television, but also the airwaves. We see this [campaign] as a necessary break of that control."

Okay, well, now, like all Rage Against the Machine efforts, they're starting to go a little off the rails. Just wait:

Meanwhile guitarist Tom Morello explained why the band had decided to back the fan-led campaign. He said: "People are tired of being spoon fed one schmaltzy ballad after another. They want to take back their own charts. We're honoured they've chosen our song to be the rebel anthem to topple The X Factor monopoly. People aren't buying Killing In The Name to protest a record coming out on a major company. We wrote Killing In The Name in a small industrial slum in Los Angeles. The X Factor song is written by a cabal of overpaid songwriters to shove the schmaltzy business down your throats. So there is two very different choices. The thing the listeners need to know is, it's a really close race and its a real liberating musical revolution and we're honoured to be a part of it."

Are people tired of being spoonfed these ballads? Um, no. RATM is tired of them being spoonfed these ballads and this is the kind of self-righteous bullshit that only someone who'd call any part of Los Angeles the nice guys in Rage recorded a song in a "slum," and this is not a revolution, this is a contest to get people to buy shit, and like, really? Come on.

I mean, whatever. Why argue this kind of thing? Rage Against the Machine is angry and you can't argue with an angry person! You can just let them get angrier. Which is fine for me, because I like Rage Against the Machine's music, which gets better the angrier they are.

After this radio appearance, they then sang their classic I'm-tired-of-my-older-brother-winning-our-fights anthem "Killing In the Name," with the angry "fuck you I won't do what you tell me" part intact at the end. And a few days later, it's announced that they won this little contest.

It is the first time a non-X-Factor song has made it to Christmas number one for four years and represents a major snub to the show's creator Cowell who angrily described the campaign to him another number one slot as "very Scrooge".

Heh. Even better:

X-Factor winner McElderry was less than a year old when Rage Against the Machine stormed onto the LA rock scene in 1992 with their self-titled debut album which went triple platinum and effectively gave birth to the nu-metal rock scene by blending heavy metal guitar riffs with politically charged rap lyrics. Earlier in the week he listened to "Killing in the Name" for the first time and described it as "dreadful". But last night the 18-year-old Geordie singer, whose cover of Miley Cyrus' "The Climb" sold 50,000 fewer copies than his rivals, was noticeably more magnanimous in defeat.

Nu-metal? Ouch. That means they were responsible for...Limp Bizkit? BARF. Revolution, indeed. They even got Paul McCartney's backing after Sir Paul played with the kid on TV. This is a big thing over there!

So now thanks to Facebook and the power of people buying things, Rage promised to donate their royalties and play a "thank you" gig in the UK next year. That gig will probably be in front of some financial exchange and get shut down after three songs because they didn't get clearance permits because London, they might not do what you tell them.

But the problem with so many well-intended efforts is that they're half way to hell. Who gets the money from this? Sony! Sony gets RATM's money and money from the records the kid Cowell's repping. So what's the point? Revolution, shmevolution. If Rage Against the Machine really cared, they'd just make a new record already and release it independently. Now they're just old and stumbled into a pissing contest with an 18 year-old pop star that led to them checking to see if their globalization-protesting dicks still work. And they do. I like Rage's music, but really? This is soft. Rage, indeed. Fuck you, everyone did what they were told to do.

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gawker/full/~3/0hEfWUhvaiE/who-is-simon-monjack

Brittany Murphy's life was cut short at 32 when she passed away this morning. The latest piece of news is that her husband, Simon Monjack, reportedly told Cedars-Sinai staffers that he didn't want there to be an autopsy. Who?

Murphy and Monjack got married in May, 2007, in a private ceremony. Previous to that, Murphy had been engaged and in relationships that ended quietly and without much explanation. Most publicly, she was engaged to production and management company The Firm CEO Jeff Kwatinetz (Kawtinetz left the company last year). In 2005, Murphy was engaged to Joe Macaluso, who worked with Murphy as the Production Best Boy on Little Black Book (he now works in Hollywood as a Key Grip). In an interview with OK Magazine, Murphy once had this to say about Monjack:

"We first met when I was 17 years old. We checked in with each other throughout the years and remained friends. The easiest decision I ever had in my life was getting married...He's flown around the world to make sure we spend every single night together."

When Monjack and Murphy got married, it was, for whatever reason, very, very quiet:

The hush-hush ceremony-and reluctant confirmation that a ceremony even took place-follows an equally quiet courtship. Murphy and Monjack didn't make any public appearances together and never announced their engagement, which, based on her dating timeline, had to have taken place within the past eight months.

At the scene of Murphy's death, it was Muphy's mother who discovered her. Monjack was noted as being "dazed" on the scene:

Murphy's husband, wearing pajama bottoms and no shoes, appeared ''dazed'' as firefighters tried to save her, Staples said. ''It's just tragic,'' she added.

And TMZ snapped him returning home. By any measure, anybody in any kind of grieving mode is absolutely entitled to feel as dazed or as frenetic or look however the hell they want.

But there's no question the circumstances surrounding this are, well, cloudy. Monjack concerning himself with whether or not there's an autopsy's certainly one of them. Another: there's almost no information out there on Monjack besides assertions of his "shady" nature on straight-Hollywood gossip sights that—while certainly trafficking in all kinds of rumors—all turn up the same kind of thing. One website's tipsters let loose on him: he drained his own family's cash on his film, he picked up women on J-Date, and he has some kind of reputation for a "con." They also came up with this:

He told me he was constantly tracked by the Customs & Excise in England - apparently he would tip them off about gun/drug smuggling on his aircraft and Air India. This is perhaps the funniest. He told me he had a homosexual affair with Damian Hirst when they lived in N.Y. (Broom Street). When they broke up, Damian gave him a picture entitled "I Feel Fine." Simon's ex-wife, Marcia, had damaged the picture, so Simon repaired it with glue (!?) He was frequently calling sex lines in Gambia.

So...who is this guy? Simon Monjack's a screenwriter who hasn't done much work recently. He was behind Factory Girl and did indeed write and direct a film called Two Days, Nine Lives that wasn't very successful. But Murphy's friends have been warning her off him for a while. The guy's had a past, and a substantial one at that:

Among his troubles: two warrants for his arrest in Virginia for alleged credit-card theft and fraud; an unpaid $6,087 legal bill, and a $502,910 judgment against him by a British investment firm. And Us Weekly reports in its new issue that Monjack gave his former fiancée, British film producer Taira Rafiq, an engagement ring he had told her was a diamond but was, in fact, cubic zirconia. "Taira tried to get in touch with Brittany to warn her," a Rafiq pal tells Us.

Where there's smoke, there's fire. Murphy was reportedly diabetic, and that may or may not have had something to do with the circumstances surrounding her death. But Monjack's about to enter a world of unprecedented scrutiny. The Big Yellow Taxi law couldn't be applied more, here: fans of film didn't know what they had until it was gone. Monjack can mourn, and be presumed innocent of any wrongdoing in regards to influencing Murphy's life. In all fairness, he can even be assumed to be something that made Murphy very, very happy.

But he's going to have to answer for quotes like the autopsy one, and the incident at LAX coming from Puerto Rico last month in the upcoming days. Let's hope he has the right ones, for everyone's sake. Because from the sound of it...

On whether she wants kids: "I hope to have a few. I've always loved kids and babies and always wanted to be a mom. Hopefully soon."

...Brittany Murphy had no plans of leaving this world any time soon. People are going to want to know why it happened.

http://feeds.gothamistllc.com/click.phdo?i=0ce362a2cf716e99059a9f237eb8b7bf

http://laist.com/2009/12/20/week_around_the_ists_72.php

Illustration by Clayton Hanmer

• Torontoist selected their city's Heroes and Villains of the year—complete with some of the coolest original illustrations you will see on the whole wide internet. (Boo NHL and Earth Hour! Hooray wildlife and Roy Halladay!)
• Seattlest got what they wanted from modern corporate rock.
• Chicagoist took note of some political intrigue when a state senator's husband confronted her opponent at one of his fundraisers.
• Bostonist came up with some exciting beer-related and liquor-related holiday gifts.
• LAist sat back, relaxed, and gave Neil Young's "Dreamin' Man Live '92" a listen, and found it often was better than the studio album those performances wound up preceding.
• Phillyist took a look at their best reader-submitted photos of 2009.
• Londonist bravely stripped off and joined dozens of other foolhardy lunatics for a gonad-shrivelling dip in an ice-encrusted pool at the Brockwell Lido mid-winter swim. Brrrr!
• Shanghaiist documented the implosion of one of the oldest English teaching schools in the city, Kaien English. It's a stark reminder of how little protection many foreigners working in China really have.
• SFist snapped some shots of Lady Gaga.
• DCist was stunned when a police detective drew a gun at a friendly snowball fight in the middle of Washington, D.C.'s big winter storm.
• Gothamist broke news of a naked bike ride to protest the removal of a bike lane but a winter storm made it a bust, much to the disappointment of a cop who yelled, "I want to see some boobs."

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gawker/full/~3/0hEfWUhvaiE/who-is-simon-monjack

Brittany Murphy's life was cut short at 31 when she passed away last night. The latest piece of news is that her husband, Simon Monjack, reportedly told Cedars-Sinai staffers that he didn't want there to be an autopsy. Who?

Murphy and Monjack got married in May, 2007, in a private ceremony. Previous to that, Murphy had been engaged and in relationships that ended quietly and without much explanation. Most publicly, she was engaged to production and management company The Firm CEO Jeff Kwatinetz (Kawtinetz left the company last year). In 2005, Murphy was engaged to Joe Macaluso, who worked with Murphy as the Production Best Boy on Little Black Book (he now works in Hollywood as a Key Grip). In an interview with OK Magazine, Murphy once had this to say about Monjack:

"We first met when I was 17 years old. We checked in with each other throughout the years and remained friends. The easiest decision I ever had in my life was getting married...He's flown around the world to make sure we spend every single night together."

When Monjack and Murphy got married, it was, for whatever reason, very, very quiet:

The hush-hush ceremony-and reluctant confirmation that a ceremony even took place-follows an equally quiet courtship. Murphy and Monjack didn't make any public appearances together and never announced their engagement, which, based on her dating timeline, had to have taken place within the past eight months.

At the scene of Murphy's death, it was Muphy's mother who discovered her. Monjack was noted as being "dazed" on the scene:

Murphy's husband, wearing pajama bottoms and no shoes, appeared ''dazed'' as firefighters tried to save her, Staples said. ''It's just tragic,'' she added.

And TMZ snapped him returning home. By any measure, anybody in any kind of grieving mode is absolutely entitled to feel as dazed or as frenetic or look however the hell they want.

But there's no question the circumstances surrounding this are, well, cloudy. Monjack concerning himself with whether or not there's an autopsy's certainly one of them. Another: there's almost no information out there on Monjack besides assertions of his "shady" nature on straight-Hollywood gossip sights that—while certainly trafficking in all kinds of rumors—all turn up the same kind of thing. One website's tipsters let loose on him: he drained his own family's cash on his film, he picked up women on J-Date, and he has some kind of reputation for a "con."

Simon Monjack is a tremendous con artist, sociopath and thief. It is amazing that he is still on the loose and not in jail! He has conned women into giving him money, changed his phone number all the time (pretending he was important), he somehow lost his family's money on the truly horrific film "Two Days Nine Lives" and has been scrambling to catch a wealthy or at least connected women to open doors for him.

The world is an unfortunate place because Simon Monjack is in it. He stalks J DATE (Jewish online dating service) for unsuspecting women and fools them with his charismatic personality, British accent, and pseudo wealth, in order to live off of their money. Simon's evil knows no bounds.

Simon Monjack, still pulling a fast one. Now he has the money he has always desired. Brittany's. Didn't her people check him out? Poor thing, she is the next victim and he is smiling his usual manipulative smile. I hope she has very good attorneys. She will need them. Tragic.

So...who is this guy? Simon Monjack's a screenwriter who hasn't done much work recently. He was behind Factory Girl and did indeed write and direct a film called Two Days, Nine Lives that wasn't very successful. But Murphy's friends have been warning her off him for a while. The guy's had a past, and a substantial one at that:

Among his troubles: two warrants for his arrest in Virginia for alleged credit-card theft and fraud; an unpaid $6,087 legal bill, and a $502,910 judgment against him by a British investment firm. And Us Weekly reports in its new issue that Monjack gave his former fiancée, British film producer Taira Rafiq, an engagement ring he had told her was a diamond but was, in fact, cubic zirconia. "Taira tried to get in touch with Brittany to warn her," a Rafiq pal tells Us.

Where there's smoke, there's fire. Murphy was reportedly diabetic, and that may or may not have had something to do with the circumstances surrounding her death. But Monjack's about to enter a world of unprecedented scrutiny. The Big Yellow Taxi law couldn't be applied more, here: fans of film didn't know what they had until it was gone. Monjack can mourn, and be presumed innocent of any wrongdoing in regards to influencing Murphy's life. In all fairness, he can even be assumed to be something that made Murphy very, very happy.

But he's going to have to answer for quotes like the autopsy one, and the incident at LAX coming from Puerto Rico last month in the upcoming days. Let's hope he has the right ones, for everyone's sake. Because from the sound of it...

On whether she wants kids: "I hope to have a few. I've always loved kids and babies and always wanted to be a mom. Hopefully soon."

...Brittany Murphy had no plans of leaving this world any time soon. People are going to want to know why it happened.

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gawker/full/~3/pRUJkfgEXiw/rage-against-the-machine-bests-simon-cowells-pop-music-robots-in-sony-pissing-contest

"Guerilla Radio," indeed. Remember angry 90s WTO-protest mascots Rage Against the Machine? Well, they and their fans decided to take on British holiday radio playlists dominated The Pop Music-Industrial-Complex Machine. And they won, pissing off Simon Cowell in the process.

See, Rage is pissed off at Simon Cowell for doing the same thing he's always done, which is manufacture perfect pop songs that are like pouring Sweet-N-Low in your ears: it's not natural and it probably gives rats cancer. That said, he makes a shitton of money off of it, so nobody's complaining. Except for Rage. Because that's their job. To rage against the machine. It's a fitting name! So they got on the radio last week and got really pissed. Zach de la Rocha and Tom Morello had things to say.

They are currently the subject of a Facebook campaign to get their 1992 hit to the festive top spot ahead of 18-year-old Joe's version of The Climb. Speaking about the race, de la Rocha attacked Cowell, saying: "Simon is an interesting character. He seems to have profited greatly off humiliating people on live television and has a unique position of capturing the attention of people on television, but also the airwaves. We see this [campaign] as a necessary break of that control."

Okay, well, now, like all Rage Against the Machine efforts, they're starting to go a little off the rails. Just wait:

Meanwhile guitarist Tom Morello explained why the band had decided to back the fan-led campaign. He said: "People are tired of being spoon fed one schmaltzy ballad after another. They want to take back their own charts. We're honoured they've chosen our song to be the rebel anthem to topple The X Factor monopoly. People aren't buying Killing In The Name to protest a record coming out on a major company. We wrote Killing In The Name in a small industrial slum in Los Angeles. The X Factor song is written by a cabal of overpaid songwriters to shove the schmaltzy business down your throats. So there is two very different choices. The thing the listeners need to know is, it's a really close race and its a real liberating musical revolution and we're honoured to be a part of it."

Are people tired of being spoonfed these ballads? Um, no. RATM is tired of them being spoonfed these ballads and this is the kind of self-righteous bullshit that only someone who'd call any part of Los Angeles the nice guys in Rage are from a "slum," and this is not a revolution, this is a contest to get people to buy shit, and like, really? Come on.

I mean, whatever. Why argue this kind of thing? Rage Against the Machine is angry and you can't argue with an angry person! You can just let them get angrier. Which is fine for me, because I like Rage Against the Machine's music, which gets better the angrier they are.

After this radio appearance, they then sang their classic I'm-tired-of-my-older-brother-winning-our-fights anthem "Killing In the Name," with the angry "fuck you I won't do what you tell me" part intact at the end. And a few days later, it's announced that they won this little contest.

It is the first time a non-X-Factor song has made it to Christmas number one for four years and represents a major snub to the show's creator Cowell who angrily described the campaign to him another number one slot as "very Scrooge".

Heh. Even better:

X-Factor winner McElderry was less than a year old when Rage Against the Machine stormed onto the LA rock scene in 1992 with their self-titled debut album which went triple platinum and effectively gave birth to the nu-metal rock scene by blending heavy metal guitar riffs with politically charged rap lyrics. Earlier in the week he listened to "Killing in the Name" for the first time and described it as "dreadful". But last night the 18-year-old Geordie singer, whose cover of Miley Cyrus' "The Climb" sold 50,000 fewer copies than his rivals, was noticeably more magnanimous in defeat.

Nu-metal? Ouch. That means they were responsible for...Limp Bizkit? BARF. Revolution, indeed. They even got Paul McCartney's backing after Sir Paul played with the kid on TV. This is a big thing over there!

So now thanks to Facebook and the power of people buying things, Rage promised to donate their royalties and play a "thank you" gig in the UK next year. That gig will probably be in front of some financial exchange and get shut down after three songs because they didn't get clearance permits because London, they might not do what you tell them.

But the problem with so many well-intended efforts is that they're half way to hell. Who gets the money from this? Sony! Sony gets RATM's money and money from the records the kid Cowell's repping. So what's the point? Revolution, shmevolution. If Rage Against the Machine really cared, they'd just make a new record already and release it independently. Now they're just old and stumbled into a pissing contest with an 18 year-old pop star that led to them checking to see if their globalization-protesting dicks still work. And they do. I like Rage's music, but really? This is soft. Rage, indeed. Fuck you, everyone did what they were told to do.

http://www.metafilter.com/87666/Girl-Interrupted

http://feeds.gothamistllc.com/click.phdo?i=27f532d3a99c8858d9391bd62fbab19a

http://gothamist.com/2009/12/20/extra_extra_1465.php

Photograph by JR from Brooklyn on Flickr

• From the Gothamist Newsmap: A police car MVA at Hylan Blvd & Goodall St on Staten Island, a shooting on Dean St in Brooklyn and an all hands on Manida St in the Bronx.
• There is "no evidence" that ex-Mayor and ex-Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani will run against Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand — or anyone else — next year.
• A 94-year-old painter is now a hot commodity: "This summer, during a retrospective show in England, The Observer of London called [Carmen] Herrera the discovery of the decade, asking, 'How can we have missed these beautiful compositions?'"
• Bryant Park's free skating rink now offers "VIP" fast pass tickets for $19 to bypass weekend lines of an hour or more. The rink points out that it includes the $12 skate rental.
• The NFL, in a partnership with Boston University brain researchers, will ask former and current players to donate their brains to science.
• Though New York City residents keep using less water, rates might go up in spring.
• Footprints in the snow led NJ cops to suspected car burglars.
• Avatar made $73 million at the box office this weekend; it fell short of estimates, but the East coast snow storm probably had something to do with that.
• Hey, Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger gives President Obama an "A" for effort.

http://feeds.gothamistllc.com/click.phdo?i=3d00bff01571f1e53da8e9d11bc95e47

http://gothamist.com/2009/12/20/the_blizzard_of_2009_in_time_lapse.php

You've already seen photos of last night's blizzard and read news accounts about the snowstorm — but now you can watch it in time-lapse photography! This neat video from controlgeek shows snow accumulating in Brooklyn with a single image every thirty seconds from yesterday afternoon through this morning.

http://www.metafilter.com/87665/Alabamas-Homeboys

http://www.metafilter.com/87664/Hubbles-Festive-View-of-a-Grand-StarForming-Region

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/021216.html

Thug, handing coin to dealer: Yo, man, check this out. You ever see something like that? What's it worth?
Black salesman: This is an Eisenhower dollar, from the bicentennial. They're not really worth more than a dollar. You can spend it, or save it as a souvenir.
Thug: Damn, man, I went through a lot of trouble to get this. My grandmother left it to me when she died. You sure it ain't valuable?
Black salesman: I'm afraid not.
Thug: Somebody offered me $100 for this shit.
Black salesman: Then I recommend you go back to that person and sell it to him. It was a great offer.
Thug: Sheeeeeeit. (leaves)
Black salesman, muttering to himself: Stupid-ass nigga.

--Fulton Street Mall

Overheard by: Big Larry

http://feeds.gothamistllc.com/click.phdo?i=a6b709e34e1330b7fc167cff26674974

http://laist.com/2009/12/20/paradis_ice_cream_you_should_try_no.php

To be honest, there aren't many frozen indulgent foods that would get this writer to leave her cozy apartment in the wintertime to travel 20 miles north up the 2 freeway to Montrose. Yet the small community town, nestled in the foothills of the Angeles National Mountains, happens to be home to a new Danish ice cream export that just may have expanded that threshold of what it means to trek for food.

Paradis opened up its first US storefront in September, boasting "ice cream made with the freshest ingredients that's only about ten minutes old when it reaches the counter". Mouth watering flavors like mint/lime sorbet, tiramisu, and banana chocolate had forced this former resident of Italy to question her loyalty to gelato, so we pretty much had to catch up with the owners behind Paradis to find out a bit more about their delicious ice cream.

Thanks for talking with us! Let's start with a little history about the store.
The store opened on Sept 26th 2009. We are 2 owners, both Danish, Morten Thorup and Mia Pedersen (myself).

What makes Paradis stand out amongst other sweet treats, especially the current frozen yogurt craze?

What makes Paradis stand out is the freshness of the ice cream. We make
our ice cream on site every morning. We use only the best and highest quality ingredients available, and always fresh fruit. Our ice cream is made with milk, and our sorbets with water. It's lower in fat than regular ice cream and gelato. We use raw organic sugar and our other dry ingredients are imported from all different countries. For example, our vanilla comes from Madagascar, our organic dark chocolate from Germany, our pistachios from Sicily. None of our ingredients are random, everything is carefully chosen, to get the absolute best and natural flavor.

Aside from the presence in Denmark, what made you choose L.A. as the first foreign market?

The owner had no plans on taking the concept to the US, but we fell in love with California when we were here on a trip last summer. We were at that time BIG fans of Paradis in Denmark and our dream became to bring the ice cream we loved to the place we loved. So we contacted them and after many meetings bought the franchise and the rights to all of southern California.

Tell us a little bit about the owner, we hear he has quite an interesting story.

There are actually 2 owners of Paradis Denmark. Thor Thoroe and Joergen Bjerre. Both very cool caring people. They want to be successful with their business but just as important for them is social responsibility. Thor could have gone to any country in Europe to expand, but he chose Uganda, because he feels like that is the place in the world where he can make the biggest difference. He moved his family and opened up a store there, where the franchisee's start up payment will not be paid to Paradis A/S Denmark but will remain in Uganda which will support the local community.

That is awesome! But back to the ice cream. How often do you rotate flavors?

We have about 200 flavors. But we serve 16 a day. We rotate 2-3 of the each day. Sometimes more!

What are the most popular flavors?

Chocolate and pistachio are pretty popular, but people keep coming back for the low calorie fruit flavors like strawberry and mint/lime because they are low in fat and have fresh fruit.

Are you looking to expand the store elsewhere in LA?

It is our plan/dream to open several stores in southern California. We will open some and other interested people might open some, since it is a franchise. We would be more than happy to help others get started selling the BEST ice cream ever!

Paradis is located at 2323 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020 and is open from Sun-Thurs: 12pm-10pm and Fri-Sat: 12pm-11pm. Their flavors rotate every day, so follow them on Facebook to see which ones they're serving.

Image courtesy of Paradis.

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http://gothamist.com/2009/12/20/opinionist_romeo_juliet.php

Paula Court

On a deliberately cheap stage (footlights made from soup cans, lavish curtains painted on canvas), two actors are currently performing what is probably the most unique twist on Romeo and Juliet in history. The script is not Shakespeare's; it's derived from hours of recorded telephone conversations of people recounting what they remember about the play, which most haven't revisited since high school. In the telling, new characters are created (like Euristhepiss, Romeo's flamboyent friend), the poetry is mangled (Where DOTH my Romeo? Juliet is the sky, and I am the sun!"), and gaps in recollection are filled with inspired invention. Digress, memory!

The result is a delirious exploration of remembrance and imagination's constant pas de deux. Alternating monologues are ingeniously performed by Anne Gridley and Robert Johanson, who trade off their time upon the stage until a final scene brings them together for a convoluted dialogue on love, lust, Shakespeare and artistic honesty. (There are two other major surprises—a daffy one in the middle and a sublime one the end—which I won't spoil here.) The text documents every awkward laugh, um, uhhh, and hm from the phone calls, turning colloquial American slang into heightened, hilarious poetry.

I doubt what I've just described does justice to the giddy joy that comes with your ticket to this Romeo & Juliet. Johanson, dressed in ridiculous tights, shoes, and ruffled blouse, delivers his monologues with hilarious, wild-eyed intensity that somehow avoids the pitfall of tired "Master Thespian" cliches. And Anne Gridley, who was also so fascinating in No Dice, is simply one of the funniest actors in New York City. Her flamboyant gesticulations are perpetually interrupted with the panicked facial contortions of someone desperately afraid of being outed as a philistine for not knowing her Shakespeare. I can't get enough of her.

And you should make haste on your, uhhhh, fiery steed to buy tickets to this production, the latest idiosyncratic triumph from Nature Theater of Oklahoma, which presented the stellar Rambo Solo earlier this year. This is one of the greatest theater companies in New York, if not the world. As Kafka wrote about his fictional Nature Theater of Oklahoma, "accursed be anyone who doesn't believe us!"

Romeo and Juliet continues at The Kitchen through January 16th. Tickets cost $20.

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http://gothamist.com/2009/12/20/shoppers_evacuated_during_fire_at_m.php

Photos via Rich_Rare and ShallowSeas Twitters

About an hour ago an alert came over the newswire that there was a fire at Macy's in Herald Square, which noted it was "2nd alarm due to the amount of people in the shop." One holiday shopper Twittered amidst the action, saying, "I come all the way down here and Macy's is on fire... no lie, shit is flaming." NY1 reports that shoppers were evacuated, and the fire was on an escalator between the third and fourth floors. The fire has now been extinguished and no injuries have been reported.

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"Guerilla Radio," indeed. Remember angry 90s WTO-protest mascots Rage Against the Machine? Well, they and their fans decided to take on British holiday radio playlists dominated The Pop Music-Industrial-Complex Machine. And they won, pissing off Simon Cowell in the process.

See, Rage is pissed off at Simon Cowell for doing the same thing he's always done, which is manufacture perfect pop songs that are like pouring Sweet-N-Low in your ears: it's not natural and it probably gives rats cancer. That said, he makes a shitton of money off of it, so nobody's complaining. Except for Rage. Because that's their job. To rage against the machine. It's a fitting name! So they got on the radio last week and got really pissed. Zach de la Rocha and Tom Morello had things to say.

They are currently the subject of a Facebook campaign to get their 1992 hit to the festive top spot ahead of 18-year-old Joe's version of The Climb. Speaking about the race, de la Rocha attacked Cowell, saying: "Simon is an interesting character. He seems to have profited greatly off humiliating people on live television and has a unique position of capturing the attention of people on television, but also the airwaves. We see this [campaign] as a necessary break of that control."

Okay, well, now, like all Rage Against the Machine efforts, they're starting to go a little off the rails. Just wait:

Meanwhile guitarist Tom Morello explained why the band had decided to back the fan-led campaign. He said: "People are tired of being spoon fed one schmaltzy ballad after another. They want to take back their own charts. We're honoured they've chosen our song to be the rebel anthem to topple The X Factor monopoly. People aren't buying Killing In The Name to protest a record coming out on a major company. We wrote Killing In The Name in a small industrial slum in Los Angeles. The X Factor song is written by a cabal of overpaid songwriters to shove the schmaltzy business down your throats. So there is two very different choices. The thing the listeners need to know is, it's a really close race and its a real liberating musical revolution and we're honoured to be a part of it."

Are people tired of being spoonfed these ballads? Um, no. RATM is tired of them being spoonfed these ballads and this is the kind of self-righteous bullshit that only someone who'd call any part of Los Angeles the nice guys in Rage are from a "slum," and this is not a revolution, this is a contest to get people to buy shit, and like, really? Come on.

I mean, whatever. Why argue this kind of thing? Rage Against the Machine is angry and you can't argue with an angry person! You can just let them get angrier. Which is fine for me, because I like Rage Against the Machine's music, which gets better the angrier they are.

After this radio appearance, they then sang their classic I'm-tired-of-my-older-brother-winning-our-fights anthem "Killing In the Name," with the angry "fuck you I won't do what you tell me" part intact at the end. And a few days later, it's announced that they won this little contest.

It is the first time a non-X-Factor song has made it to Christmas number one for four years and represents a major snub to the show's creator Cowell who angrily described the campaign to him another number one slot as "very Scrooge".

Heh. Even better:

X-Factor winner McElderry was less than a year old when Rage Against the Machine stormed onto the LA rock scene in 1992 with their self-titled debut album which went triple platinum and effectively gave birth to the nu-metal rock scene by blending heavy metal guitar riffs with politically charged rap lyrics. Earlier in the week he listened to "Killing in the Name" for the first time and described it as "dreadful". But last night the 18-year-old Geordie singer, whose cover of Miley Cyrus' "The Climb" sold 50,000 fewer copies than his rivals, was noticeably more magnanimous in defeat.

Nu-metal? Ouch. That means they were responsible for...Limp Bizkit? BARF. Revolution, indeed. They even got Paul McCartney's backing after Sir Paul played with the kid on TV. This is a big thing over there!

So now thanks to Facebook and the power of people buying things, Rage promised to donate their royalties and play a "thank you" gig in the UK next year. That gig will probably be in front of some financial exchange and get shut down after three songs because they didn't get clearance permits because fuck you London, they won't do what you tell them.

But the problem with so many well-intended efforts is that they're half way to hell. Who gets the money from this? Sony! Sony gets RATM's money and money from the records the kid Cowell's repping. So what's the point? Revolution, shmevolution. If Rage Against the Machine really cared, they'd just make a new record already and release it independently. Now they're just old and got into a pissing contest with an 18 year-old pop star to make sure their globalization-protesting dicks still work. And they do. Rebel, indeed. Fuck you, everyone did what they were told to do.

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http://laist.com/2009/12/20/holiday_gift_guide_classical_music.php

Amadeus is a great gift option, but they probably have the movie already. Instead, how about some alcohol? If you have trouble shopping for your friend that is obsessed with classical music, look no further. Our classical music gift guide from last year still has a few relevant goodies, including an LAist fave, the Mozart Chocolate Cream Gold Liqueur. Alcohol is never a bad gift. You can also get little Mozart chocolates from Salzburg on the side.

Once again, the best gift is the one that supports the local arts community. LA has a world class Classical music scene, and even if you can't see Dudamel this year, there are plenty of other options. Most of the expensive shows like the Ring Cycle are tax deductible and are quite popular for dates. We also recommend subscriptions to your local paper for local classical music coverage (particularly the LA Times) or to the Gramophone, Strad, Strings, or BBC Music magazine. It's a unique gift that keeps on giving.

LACO has their own gift guide, and the LA Phil has a cute e-card you can send from Fidelity that plays Mozart's Flute Concerto in D. The NY Times has their own gift guide on the best classical CDs of the year, if you're looking for a CD. The LA Times goes a little more in depth, with a guide for new music fans, the classicist, the romantic, LA lovers, and the opera maven. Happy hunting!

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Photo by stephenfalk via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr

Forget regular old lit up Christmas Trees or other signs of this festive time of year; it's pretty tough to compete with this local legend of a home and its row of David statues all dolled up for the holidays. It's Norrywood, decked out for Christmas 2009!

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http://gothamist.com/2009/12/20/can_the_giants_stop_anyone.php

For the third-consecutive week the Giants face a NFC East opponent in a huge game. With Dallas’ victory over New Orleans Saturday Night, the Giants will probably have to win their last three games to have any shot at the playoffs.

As they showed last Sunday, the Giants have huge issues on defense and those issues may be growing. Corey Webster is listed as doubtful. Aaron Ross is listed as questionable and without those two, the secondary will really be stretched. To make matters worse, Washington has become a much more competitive team over the past few weeks. They narrowly lost to both Dallas and Philadelphia and they beat Denver, a team that humiliated the Giants on Thanksgiving Night.

Eli and the offense should be able to move the ball and score a ton of points, but unless the defense shows up, it won’t be enough. Betting on the Giants defense to do anything at this point is a fool’s choice and that’s why the pick is a win for Washington.

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http://gothamist.com/2009/12/20/bloomberg_albany_might_make_nyc_suf.php

As state legislators prepare to face the worsening financial situation in Albany, Mayor Bloomberg warned that budget cuts from could make life particularly miserable for New York City residents. "We're just going to have to suffer," he said on his WOR radio show. Following his warning yesterday that the state might cut even funding for the MTA as it attempts to plug a budget deficit of about $10 billion before the April 1 deadline, the Mayor warned that that cuts could be widespread, according to the Post. He also shared these less-than-encouraging words: "If they start taking it out on us, and disproportionately on us versus the rest of the state ... then we're in big trouble."

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What're the odds: four siblings, admitted into the same Yale class? Not bad. BOOLA BOOLA!

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A literary blind item in the New York Times? Yes! Buried in novelist Margo Rabb's NYT Sunday Book Review essay about increases in shoplifting at bookstores is an anecdote about an unnamed author who jacked his own product from one.

WHO could this possibly BE?

At Boulder Book Store in Boulder, Colo., one writer was even busted stealing his own books. Christopher Ohman, who was a manager at the time, said: "I think he felt somewhat entitled to the copies. In some ways I can kind of understand that logic. I mean, it's a commonly held misconception that authors get as many copies of their books as they want, and that's not always the case." (Ohman conceded that the author's alcohol problem may also have had something to do with it.)

I have two suspects.

1. Jon Krakauer: Honestly, I don't think Jon Krakauer is a drunk, but he does live in Boulder, and that whole beardy Into The Wild ethos might've taken ahold of him one day.

2. Jello Biafra (ne Eric Reed Boucher): Jello Biafra is the lead singer of the Dead Kennedys, and his parents live in Boulder. I'm not sure if he's a drunk either but it's definitely punk as fuck to steal your own book and subvert the system or whatever, so maybe he needed a last minute present.

That's it.

So! We ask that whoever stole their own book or workers of the bookstore or SOMEBODY please come forward and tell us who the drunk writer was that stole his own book. Or at least give us a clue as to which whimsical Boulder scalawags may or may not be on book-stealing-benders these days. Because I'd like to know.

As for Ms. Rabb's essay, all you need to know is this:

Although there's no hard statistical evidence on most-stolen titles, The Telegraph of London reported last year that Jeffrey Eugenides's novel "The Virgin Suicides" was said to be "the most shoplifted book of modern times." Eugenides had heard this for many years. "I just assumed that the book appealed to the young and sticky-fingered to a certain extent," he told me, with some amusement. Years ago, Eugenides was at a literary conference with Paul Auster, another top choice among literary thieves. "Paul and I argued about whose book was stolen more," Eugenides said. "He claimed he was stolen a lot, I claimed I was stolen a lot. Back and forth. It was one of those deep intellectual conversations."

The punishment for stealing either of these guys' books is that you have to read them. Or be 17 again. But be the kind of 17 year-old who steals these books.

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http://laist.com/2009/12/20/classical_pick_of_the_week_leftover.php

You can hear Abe Laboriel in a few hours if you have nothing better to do, we highly recommend it! The LA Opera is now on hold until April 3rd, when it returns with the last of Wagner's Ring Cycle, Gotterdammerung (Twilight of the Gods). There is also a special concert with world renown tenor Jose Carreras who will perform at the Greek Theatre on June 26th. Although that's a little far off, these tickets are sure to sell out quickly and you can access them early here. This holiday presale offer also adds a 10 dollar discount and is good until the 22nd, with the code "LAOPERA".

If you're looking for a last minute Christmas related outing or concert, we've got you covered. We also forgot to mention the Lark Musical Society is hosting a chamber music concert today at 3 PM at Zipper Hall. Tickets are 20-35 dollars with student discount (15) available. The holiday-themed concert features Abe Laboriel and others performing Piazzolla's "Tangos", "Four Seasons of Beunos Aires", and works by Haydn and Mirzoyan.

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http://gothamist.com/2009/12/20/elsewhere_in_the_ist-a-verse_46.php

Photograph from Londonist

• Londonist bravely stripped off and joined dozens of other foolhardy lunatics for a gonad-shrivelling dip in an ice-encrusted pool at the Brockwell Lido mid-winter swim. Brrrr!
• Chicagoist took note of some political intrigue when a state senator's husband confronted her opponent at one of his fundraisers.
• Torontoist selected their city's Heroes and Villains of the year—complete with some of the coolest original illustrations you will see on the whole wide internet. (Boo NHL and Earth Hour! Hooray wildlife and Roy Halladay!)
• Seattlest got what they wanted from modern corporate rock.
• Bostonist came up with some exciting beer-related and liquor-related holiday gifts.
• LAist sat back, relaxed, and gave Neil Young's "Dreamin' Man Live '92" a listen, and found it often was better than the studio album those performances wound up preceding.
• Phillyist took a look at their best reader-submitted photos of 2009.
• Shanghaiist documented the implosion of one of the oldest English teaching schools in the city, Kaien English. It's a stark reminder of how little protection many foreigners working in China really have.
• SFist snapped some shots of Lady Gaga.
• DCist was stunned when a police detective drew a gun at a friendly snowball fight in the middle of Washington, D.C.'s big winter storm.
• Gothamist broke news of a naked bike ride to protest the removal of a bike lane but a winter storm made it a bust, much to the disappointment of a cop who yelled, "I want to see some boobs."