Well, I moved out here to Hollywood, CA from Michigan with the rest of the Caliblog team in 2004 to do a gamut of things...I suppose I should get working on that...
So, as I left my place today I was met with the sight of abandon Christmas trees strewn up and down my block as if there was some kind of official tree pick-up day, which by the end of the day it was confirmed that they're definitely is not. It was just such a sad visual, as if everyone was letting go of some happiness all at the same time. Obviously it was something that they all wanted to hold onto since they waited until January 15th to finally let go. I know it's not that big of a deal. People do it every year, but for some reason seeing it this morning really affected me. I don't know why exactly, but the 50+ dying trees decorating the curbs of my block made me feel like hundreds of people all just became a little less happy all at the same time. Is that stupid? I don't know. I used to live with a couple of roommates in a house in Jackson, Michigan a while back and after Christmas we had left the tree up for so long (luckily, it was artificial) that we decided to keep it up all year round. We even considered redecorating it for different holidays, but that would have just gotten expensive. Eventually, we did end up taking the tree down around October, just in time to have to put it back up two months later, but that's OK, I had moved out by Christmas anyway. I've never thought about it before, but maybe it was because the tree came down. Hmmm...
A friend recently commented on my lack of activity on this particular site, and I realized that I may be slacking quite a bit. My bad. I don't want people to think that I'm abandoning Generic City again. I've been working really hard on a few things. I was trying to finish up this little Halloween cartoon in time for October 31st (obviously), but I ran into a couple of snags during the designing and it set me back a bit. I'm still working on it, but it doesn't exactly seem like something to release for Christmas, so I may sit on it for a while. I've also been working on a second (or is it third?) website to move most of the posts that I end up writing here that have less to do with me and more to do with movies, clips, toons, news, whatever to another forum and make this back into more of a personal journal, if you will. Hopefully, within the next week or so I will be back in full stride and all will be right with the world again. For those of you who still visit Generic City to see if anything's changed, thank you and really appreciate your interest. Take care for now.
John McCain makes a last minute effort to curry support for the upcoming election by poking fun at himself on SNL. Poke all the fun you want, that guy's still got something loose upstairs.
As if Tina Fey's Palin wasn't enough, Will Ferrell's Bush makes an appearance with her in this latest hilarious SNL opening. I going to go ahead and say that this clip will definitely be the jewel in this season's political crown for SNL. Enjoy.
This Sunday's Family Guy borrows from the one the best scenes from the movie Office Space. From the first three seconds the music started playing I was already laughing as I made the connection. Classic.
From the mind of Simon Tofield of Tandem Films comes the award-winning Simon's Cat. The U.K. director and animator has really found a way to capture just how annoying and overbearing a cat can be, like only a man living under cat oppression can. [Here is my personal favorite entitled 'Let Me In.']
For a while now Blame Society Films has been doing a very popular series of Chad Vader shorts about Darth Vader's less than successful brother. Since the initial series, they've released a number of follow-up videos starring poor ol' Chad, including grocery training videos and Vader's rendition of the cult internet hit, Chocolate Rain [Chad's version here]. Here is the first video from the original series: Chad Vader, Day Shift Manager.
Tina Fey graced the SNL stage once again with buddy Amy Poehler (who is also leaving) to open the Saturday night sketch show with her rendition of VP candidate, Sarah Palin. This time as a rib on Palin's recent interview with CBS News' Katie Couric. After stuttering and stumbling through an interview where she just continued to reiterate points that were already discussed, Palin topped it all off with her response to Katie's question on examples of McCain's track record with, "I'll try to find ya' some and I'll bring 'em to ya'." The could-be leader of the free world, ladies and gentlemen -Let's give her hand...
Anyhoo, here is Palin's actual interview with Katie Couric
...and Tina Fey's version of the 'follow-up' interview
So, apparently, Visa is offering a new service to businesses in search of alternative payroll methods -The Visa Payroll card. They say it will cut costs from paper usage and manpower and be more secure than paychecks. The way I see it, the more of my payroll that is held by computers through a credit, the more opportunities someone has to tap in to that money. If this catches on it's only a matter of time before I don't even SEE my money anymore. It will all be 'credits' just like in the movies.
According to Visa: "The Visa Payroll card is a reloadable prepaid card that provides employers and their employees with a convenient, low-cost alternative to payroll checks. It enables businesses to help reduce costs associated with paper-based payroll processes, including producing, handling, and processing paper checks. It also helps businesses avoid check-related fraud losses and theft. For employees without a bank account, the Visa Payroll card is a valuable employee benefit that helps avoid the high cost of check cashing, while providing convenience and safety.
The Visa Payroll card is welcome everywhere Visa debit cards are accepted. So employees can use them at millions of locations worldwide, including Internet and mail order/telephone order (MOTO) merchants, Visa ATMs, and Visa member locations. Adding Interlink® and/or Plus® brand marks on the Visa Payroll card provides expanded acceptance for cardholders."
You can read more about the Visa Payroll card here.
A couple of weeks ago I came across a game show that's so incredibly bad that if they were trying to parody a game show they couldn't have done a better than this piece of work. Popular in Japan, Hole In The Wall has moved through Australia and the U.K., finally rearing it's ugly head in the U.S. I have to say that I honestly just feel bad for the contestants and to add to the train wreck that is this show, nobody even scored a single point until the last seconds of the 'competition'. Now that's exciting! And the poor woman at the end...you know what, just watch these short clips and see for yourself.
THE FIRST ROUND OF THE NIGHT
THE FINAL BONUS ROUND ***That poor woman's face! Man, that DOES look like fun...***
She was SNL's first female head writer and eventually assumed the mantle of co-anchor for the show's staple segment, Weekend Update (later also co-anchoring the first female team on Weekend Update with buddy Amy Poehler). Not resting on her laurels, she conquered the big screen by penning and starring in the hit movie Mean Girls. Making the transition in 2006 from sketch comedy to situation comedy she went on to create and star in NBC's hilarious 30 Rock. So, what has Tina Fey set her sights on now? How about the Vice-Presidency?
To open SNL's highest rated season premiere in years, Tina comes back to 8H for a role she was born to play portraying Republican VP candidate, Sarah Palin. The sketch has created quite a buzz for Fey's dead-on performance. The $60,000 question is now that her return performance has become such a hit, will she continue to carry the mantle of SNL's newest in a long line of political satires (starting all the way back with Danny Aykroyd's Richard Nixon in 1975) or pass it off to someone else. According to Lorne Michaels, he would prefer to have Tina keep the train rolling, but apparently already has a backup and a second backup in case that doesn't pan out. Hopefully, though, Mrs. Fey will be able to find time in her busy schedule to spend a few minutes with us every Saturday night.
While trying to track down a friend of mine from Michigan, I came across a blog that he and his wife, Stephanie had created for their daughter, Emmie-Rose. I decided to take a look and see what it was about. I was heart-broken to find that Emmie-Rose was born in July of 2006 seventeen weeks premature and quickly developed complications. It was a gut-wrenching battle for the two of them, but in the end their sweet little girl didn't make it past that September. What makes this horrible story even worse is that she had fought on long passed what the doctors had predicted, but in the last days the hospital refused to continue to feed her against the multiple requests from Chris and Stephanie, a decision supported by the ethics committee.
The ETHICS committee said stop feeding the little angel, she's fading anyway. What the hell?! I know it's been almost exactly two years to the date that all of this took place and I wish I could have known about what was going on to give them my support, but to this day they still continue to write little Emmie-Rose at 23weeks and never let her forget that she's in their hearts.
