Sometimes, when it comes to the content on Medium Happiness, I feel like a nutritionally clueless/lazy parent who only feeds their child junk food. But then to make up for it, there are days like this one, when by chance some produce at the internet-news market catches my eye and I decide to go home and cook up some itellectually nutritious content.
Here it is. An amazing and also very sad story from the BBC. It’s sort of long so click below if you’d like to read it.
I’ve been known to turn my sanctimonious nose up when discussing reality TV with people who watch a lot of it. I can’t help but to think that they’re simultaneously rotting their brains and our culture. The people I know, like most people, watch the big shows: Biggest Loser, American Idol, Dancing With the Stars, Jersey Shore, The Hills… The list goes on and on.
The thing is, I don’t have any right to judge anyone if they choose to watch the same television shows that every third person in the US is also watching. Because the modicum of reality TV that I do watch (maybe 1 show at a time) is so bad it’s probably the equivalent of watching 20 different shows a week.
Here are a few of the reality shows I’ve regularly watched:
Salt N Pepa Show: Boring, irrelevant, boring.
Ax Men: Boring, like Deadliest Catch (which is already boring) in a forest.
And now, my latest find is a the little show that could, Johnny Weir Be Good. The star, Johnny, is the self-proclaimed badboy of figure skating. The show works because contrary to Johnny’s subjective assessment, he’s not the badboy of anything. In fact, he’s a neurotic, sassy prince with a penchant for sequins and lace gloves who can skate his balls off.
Here’s a preview. In the words of Ferris Beuller, I Highly Recommend It.
Have you ever heard someone say that the kind of dog a person owns is an extension of their personality? Or, what about the expression, “That is so you.” The person who said it means that whatever material object it is you’re thinking about buying suits you.
Well, today, as I was browsing the trash recepticle of news that is CNN.com, I found out that inventors’ inventions are just extensions of their personalities.
Consider Einstein. He looks like he invented the idea of relativity. Ben Franklin and the bifocal? Ditto.
Here’s what I found on CNN.com that further proves the theory:
This is a photo of Doug Hines posing with his great invention, the world’s first talking sex robot. I’m sure when Doug unveiled Roxxxy (that’s her actual name) to his friends, they said, “Oh, Doug, it’s great. It’s so you, man.”
![t1larg[1]](http://mediumhappiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/t1larg1.jpg "t1larg[1]")
Hey errrybody, the Winter X Games start this Thursday night and I implore you to watch some of it. Set your DVRs to record all of it, then just pick out the parts that look stoke-able and watch those. This will let you skip over stuff like the snowmobile races. BO-ring.
The mean age for Winter X Games competitors is about 18, but the magnitude and complexity of the tricks is off the charts. Check out the crash from training today in the video below. Poor Simon Dumont hits the deck of a half pipe (which is pretty much pure ice) like nothing I’ve ever seen. And, he gets up and skis away; after being knocked unconcious.
The crash happens around 4:15. The rest is somewhat unspectacular.
Two things I read today made me feel either strongly encouraged or discouraged. The discouraging part was that the Supreme Court overturned whatever progress was being made in the slushy battle against campaign financing. Basically, the floodgates are back open. So big business get out your pocket protectors because politicians are jumping back in.
The other thing I read had quite the opposite effect on me. I smiled and thought it was pretty cool when I read it: A coyote was found in New York City, Harlem more specifically. I’ve had this discussion with someone before, about whether or not there are coyotes in Central Park. It seems like ther could be. There are sections that are relatively remote and forrested. But, then again, a lot of people use Central Park everyday so it’s highly unlikely that they wouldn’t eventually be spotted.
The head of the parks department when interviewed said he thought the coyote either walked down the Metro North train tracks or swam from somewhere north. These both seem plausible but unlikley.
I am a big proponent, by the way, of some serious re-wilding getting underway in the US. I think we humans are too complacent and have overbread way to many designer dog species. Introducing some ravenous meat eaters will help us big time. I should disclose that I am the owner of a small dog but he’s got wolf in him, I’m sure of it, so he’ll be just fine. I’ll try and post some footage of him in the near future. His name is Augustus and he’s awesome.
Bad Coyotes
![CoyoteUglyBigPic[1]](http://mediumhappiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/CoyoteUglyBigPic1.jpg "CoyoteUglyBigPic[1]")
Surely the Luddites at Comcast and NBC must have known that a very publicly and humiliatingly firing Conan O’Brien AND THEN letting him keep his show for a while was a mistake. If they wanted to do damage control, they should have Baltimore Colts’d his ass and tore the whole studio down while he was sleeping one night. Sorry, CoCo, no more show show.
Anyhow, they didn’t do that. Instead, they’ve allowed Conan to keep broadcasting live while he is well aware that there’s a 99% chance this is it for him and NBC.
When Conan took over the Tonight Show, like most of his fans, I was glad to see he was moving up, but sad to see he would have to tone down the inappropriate shenanigans. Since he found out the Conan hosted Tonight Show was definitely getting torpedoed, Conan has gone back to his old pranksterism and upped it ten fold. If you haven’t been watching The Tonight Show with Conan, you should definitely try to catch the last few episodes that air between now and whenever it is next week they officially pull the plug.
Take a look:
Everyone should read this interview, it’s spectacular. It’s Heidi Montag (good for you if you don’t know who that is) talking about how important and amazing her forthcoming shit sandwich of a “Pop” album is.
Here’s a little sample to pique your interest:
EW: Do you think Superficial holds up against something like Thriller?
HM: I definitely do. I think people might not see it now, because it’s my first album coming out. But I’ve spent as much time–maybe more, even–than Thriller. Every detail was very important to me, because I take this very seriously. Most artists, it’s not their own money, but I’ve actually gone broke putting every dollar I’ve ever made and my heart and soul into this music. For me, I have a different appreciation, a different understanding, and a different love of my music and for my album than any other artist possibly could. Because this is my money. This is my gamble. This is my chance.
This post is probably a lot more pro skiing-ski scene information than my average regular reader is going to be interested in. Then again, I don’t think I have many ‘average’ readers left, so there. And, even though the subject of this post is skiing, the theme is irony, which is something anyone can relate to.
To summarize, if you’ve been to a ski mountain lately and noticed the kids wearing dumb-large T-shirts, sliding down kinked rails (on a ski slope?) and afterbanging to whatever bad hip-hop it is that’s blaring on their low-riding SkullCandy headphones, you can basically thank Tanner Hall. That’s right, the very guy in the video below–wholesale hating on the new school ski scene–is the one who practically invented it.
It’s hard to beleive that a 26 year old guy from Kalispell, Montana, who used to roll up to ski events seriously blunted with an entourage that wouldn’t have been out of place on the To The Extreme / Vanilla Ice Tour would turn out to be the most influential skier of the past 20 years, but he did.
Two things Tanner had going for him, that only his parents can be thanked for, is being 14 years old in 1998, when Salomon introduced the first twin-tip ski, enabling skiers to land and ride backwards, aka switch. This was also around the time when Johnny Mosley unleashed the 360 Mute Grab in front of millions of people during the 1998 Nagano, Japan Winter Olympics. A new trick that would forever make the daffy, backscratcher, mule kick, and spread eagle uncool tricks only to be broken out in situations of extreme irony, ie spring skiing, or skiing in your dad’s old 1 piece. So, while Tanner obviously has prodigious amounts of ski talent and the requesite Boing quality internal gyroscope all great hucksters seem to have, timing was on his side.
As recently as 2002, Tanner was doing his own thing. His clothes were bigger than everyone else’s, his skiing was more laid back than anyone else’s and he valued the ability to do a trick fluidly more than how high he was getting out of a half pipe. He was also a serious asshole, which kept a lot of peopel at arms length. But then a funny thing started to happen. The whiz kids who were a few years younger than Tanner started wearing larger clothes, doing harder tricks, while oddly, reducing the amount of perceived effort exerted into each trick. Hipsters are very familiar with the trying my hardest not to try philosophy. See, there it is again. An unrelatable subject throughout which I’m insterspersing relatable themes.
In short Tanner was ahead of his time, and now he’s worried skiing is going to overshoot the dropzone. Rather than taking their insane quivers of tricks all over the mountain some of the best pro skiers are staying where they’re comfortable, in the park and pipe.
Oh my god, watch the video. It’s midnight and this is pointless. No more. I also am linking to one of Tanner’s recent half pipe runs at the bottom. It’s worth watching and will give you all a better idea of how crazy skiing has gotten and why I’m obsessed with it.
Just reading the headline of this post should alert you to the reality that you’ll find nothing worthwhile ahead. You can read the whole article if you really want below the main body of the post. Otherwise, I’ve culled the highlights for you here.
Author: Issie Lapowsky
Rag: Daily News
Photos:
Best sound bite:
“Jeans aren’t comfortable. For years, we’ve been faking it, calling our stomach-strangling, stiff-as-cardboard denims our second skin.”
After I watched this trailer, I paused to make sure I wasn’t the prey of an elaborate Internet joke. As in, this can’t possibly be a movie that’s intended to be viewed in theaters. But it is. Check out the progressive cinematic madness below.
