If you’re like me, and am constantly worrying about what the world would be like these days if William Shakespeare had released a play based that is mimicked in The Big Lebowski? Well, worry no more, folks. Ok, if you were actually worrying all this time, I’d be worried about your sanity.

Enter “Two Gentlemen of Lebowski” – the brainchild of Adam Bertocci. The Lebowski story transmogrified into Shakespearean.

I haven’t read it all, but I think I’m going to try.

Check out this rad dialogue about Walter being Shomer Shabbos:

WALTER
On our most holy Sabbath I am sworn To keep tradition, form and ceremony. The seventh and the last day rests the Jew; I labour not, nor ride in chariot, Nor handle gold, nor even play the cook, And sure as Providence I do not roll. Hath not a Jew rights? Hath not a Jew hands, Organs, bowling-balls, Pomeranians? If you schedule us, must you not do right? If we step o’er the line, do we not mark it nought? The Sabbath; I’ll roll not, God-a-mercy.

So go download the PDF and get reading.

(via @alyssa_milano and @thatdrew)

Lucky Flash by Robert Swier, on Flickr

I was staying with a colleague in Frederick, Maryland back in September, and his girlfriend (now fiancee) happened to be nannying for a couple of kids. It was movie night over here and the movie we’ve picked (aka, these kids) is Step Up 2: The Streets (aka Step Up 2: Electric Boogaloo).

Spoiler alert! If you’re planning on watching this movie, well, I’d recommend that you don’t.

I was a little worried that this film would be way over my head, having not viewed the first Step Up film. Don’t worry though, folks. The film makes perfect sense. Which is to say, that I don’t much give a crap, either way. Which is why I wrote this blog entry in the first place.

Taking place in local Baltimore (and no, this isn’t a John Waters film), “SU2:EB” is a classic example of the clash between privileged private school kids and street thugs. Pair that with a romantic storyline and you’ve got Hollywood GOLD. I’ve never seen street-based hip-hop dancing like this. Oh wait, I have. This is the same contrived bullshit that HOllywood has been shoving down the throats of teenagers for years.

Did I mention the witty banter? Because this film is chock full of it. Favorite lines:

• “Everybody’s hating on you because you’re so dope.”
• “The Streets? You mean, like Sesame Street?”
• “Oh Miss Thing, you got titties!”
• “We call this a battle, but what are we fighting for?”

Yes, people, this movie is like the bastard child of a drunken 3-way between Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, Footloose, and Bring It On. This bastard has uncles you might know: like West Side Story and You Got Served. Because when you’re a Maryland School of the Artist, you’re a Maryland School of the Artist.

Ooh, theres even a rad viral video that the private school freaks made in iMovie to the tune of the Humpty Dance. Oh, but the pranks escalate into full-on vandalism.

Oh, and who could forget the snotty fuck rich kid getting his ass kicked on the mean streets of Baltimore? This is class warfare in a thinly veiled movie about dancing.

Did I mention the asshole president of the Art Academy? Oh, because he’s definitely an asshole. And it turns out that his brother is the chick’s love interest! This movie is like an onion – so many layers upon layers of lameness. It’s like an onion that tastes like feces.

And the dance-off at the end? Heavy suspense, my friends. The prepsters really came through after getting kicked out of the dance-off. They really won their respect.

Ultimately this movie is the piece of shit that I expected it to be.

IMG_3633 by nerfski, on Flickr

I just had an ____ running with the Frederick Merwin ____ I think the entire police force came to the ____ because we didn’t have a key and had to use the service engines as ____. listen

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Greetings from Baltimore Urban(?). I am just waiting until I can catch my next plain flight. I’ve been up since 5:00 in the morning. I’m headed for Albany, New York and I’m continuing on to Phoenix, Saratoga Springs to see some old college buddies. Really beautiful right now outside the airport in Baltimore. I am happy I’ve got a little bit of time to be outside and not in an airport or an airplane. It was raining in Denver when I left this morning at 5:00 AM. I hop the whether will hold up when I am in upstate New York but seriously doubt that which probably listen

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I am really enjoying this jott.com, way to post twitters and blog entries by my phone. All I need to do is call a 800 number and talk into recording and somehow magically it gets transcribe into blog entry so I can talk as much as I want and I can say things like dewsh(?) bag just to see if it actually gets print down properly, so you know well see how that goes by that. It’s pretty cool, I am really looking forward to using it when I don’t want to type so much on my stupid little telephone. listen

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I forgot how much I hate going to the airport. It’s totally a waste of time, it’s like 30 miles…I am tired of having to go to the airport. Throw in the fact that it’s snowing right now, it doesn’t make it any better, but uh, you know, that’s life. listen

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I’ve added the riffly.com plugin to my blog and you are now allowed to post audio and video comments to my blog. It’s a very cool and easy plugin to set up. Here’s the setting I needed to use on my MacBook Pro to allow the webcam to work: when you’re giving permission to riffly.com to use your webcam (to make comments), set the camera to “USB Video Class Video“.

Feel free to leave audio and video comments at will! I know you all have webcams on your computers, or at least some sheisty microphone.

1. Coke Ad – Coke runs “artistic” ads every year, well except for that whole “I’d like to teach the world to sing” thing like 30 years ago. Actually, that link is pretty damn awesome. Turns out it’s 35 years, and has the honor of being “the first historical ad ever to be restored in High Definition (HD). It can still be viewed by the public as it was donated to the Library of Congress in Washington DC in 2000.” Which is pretty cool, actually.

2. Coke ad with Bill Frist and James Carville – Does this mean that Coke donates money to both political parties to gain “cola favor” in government? Probably. This is a good Snopes article that’s related.

3. Second eTrade ad – I like when companies produce a few interchangeable spots for an ad campaign (instead of just producing 1 spot ad). To make an ad like this, it’s probably really easy to make two or three ads for just a little more money than one singular spot.

4. Bad Taco Bell Ad – Bad Taco Bell ads is public culture’s heartbeat, steady and strong. Ever since they urged you to “get laid at the bell”. Interestingly, here’s a cool BrandWeek article about expletives and their place in advertising. I like the NWA/Northweast Airlines stuff.

5. Gatorade Ad – Vitamin Water’s ad was much better. You got served, Gatorade.

6. New England is driving for the winning score, maybe? Well, at least a field goal. I figured that they’d have a chance to lose if and only if they scored under 20 points. My ideal ironic situation would be if the Pats were ahead the whole game and lost on the very last play. Undefeated until the last second. We’ll see what happens.

7. There are some good Super Bowl cakes and cupcakes photos on flickr. I never knew that there would be such amazing artistry. Check these out:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10539937@N07/2240202247/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/caryn74/2240991636/

8. Touchdown Moss! Hot damn! He hasn’t done shit all night and then gets the touchdown with 2:42 to go! Ok, back to your regular scheduled programming.

9. Here are more good photos from flickr that are “super bowl dessert” related:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/krutsch/2240116911/ (ew!)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/philliephanatic/2239982285/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cayusa/2239963699/

this one is mormon-related and not dessert-related:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sterkworks/2240708028/

10. May I say that the “Non-alcoholic beverages advertised at the Super Bowl” club just got a little less exclusive. Enter Amp Energy. Which really turns out to be a Pepsi product. Which made me look into the different brands Coke owns. Hey, Coke owns Vitamin water! And they also own about a million other brands. Like SuperKools.
I’m not really sure what that is, even.

11. Crazy double catch with :59 seconds left! Amazing how Manning got out of the sack and then chucked it downfield.

12. Here’s a list of every Pepsi brand. Hey, Pepsi owns Gatorade. And SoBe. And also apparently the bottled Starbucks drinks. It’s interesting how different companies advertise their smaller brands on the World’s Stage like this instead of reinforcing their primary brand. I like that idea, because you can build huge brand awareness for this lesser brand, and that makes you more money. Maybe that’s why McDonalds isn’t advertising. But it would be crazy to have seen a Chipotle ad when they were affiliated with McDonalds

13. Manning to Burress touchdown! This is sort of exactly how I’ve envisioned this Super Bowl to end, with New England going almost all the way and then losing at the very end. I like how it just goes to show that it doesn’t matter how you get to the Super Bowl, just that you win it.

14. Giants win. Holy shit. Pretty fucking surprising. I like how the coaches ran out onto the field a little early. But I don’t like how the Patriots just ran off the field before the Giants actually won. It actually makes this event less exciting than it should have. Poor form, Patriots. Poor form. Maybe that’s what I like about hockey, and how there’s the very professional handshake at the end of a series.

15. I also spaced that Pepsi owns Taco Bell and Doritos. It’s crazy how many spots are really from the same parent company.

16. This is probably the first time that brothers have won consecutive Super Bowls as starting quarterback. Take that, Bryan brothers and Williams sisters!

OK, this is finally done. That was a lot more time-consuming than I had expected. But sort of fun. The game was close, which was nice. I sort of had a feeling it was going to be a blowout and I was just going to stop watching the game, but it wasn’t! I don’t mind as much that the Giants won, even though I’m so anti-Giants (that link is actually cool – goes to the New York Times’ NFL blog).

1. Tom Petty moving super v guitar thing on field is very phallic. But he’s a bad ass. Who gets to run on the field during the halftime show, anyone who has a ticket? It looked to be sort of crappy to have to run your ass off to get to the front. I wonder if there are any injuries right now because of that. Most likely so.

2. Dish Network DVR ad – Frank Caliendo and his John Madden impression tells you that his super-special DVR with Dish Network can make these amazing instant replays. Trouble is, can’t any DVR do that? It’s a silly ad if you’re just highlighting something that any cable/satellite company offers. Try talking about something that makes you unique and sets you apart from your competitiors? If you don’t have any, make something. In this world, you can get more or less the same thing from a variety of retailers. I think that a brand’s uniqueness is what makes it desireable.

3. Cars.com ads contianing weird tribal rituals – We mock what we don’t understand.

4. Salesgenie.com looks like a bunch of salesman put it together. By salesmen, for salesmen! Yuck.

5. Shaq Vitamin Water ad – I like the creativity of their spots, but taking something that appears ridiculous and making it feasible based on your choice of sports drink is what America is all about! Well, that’s why I drink Mountain Dew, after all.

6. Bridgestone just had a spot with Alice Cooper and Richard Simmons in it, and neither of them had any lines. Obviously, they aren’t in these spots for their celebrity opinion. Which makes me think about those horrible Michael Imperioli HD-DVD ads – looks like he picked the wrong side.

7. Hyundai Genesis ad – It’s an interesting ad, especially how it turns the whole “only show the logo in the last 3 seconds of the ad” technique into a strength. The consumer sees this wonderful car that looks very classy and worth money, and then at the end they realize they can save money at the same time. Hyundai is pretty much borrowing from Lexus’ playbook in these ads, though. They’re sort of the Southwest Airlines of the car world.

8. Myspace will have all the Super Bowl ads on their site. This is sort of a fuck you to Facebook and YouTube, but when you really get down to it, Fox owns Myspace so it’s free advertising. I guess YouTube sponsors political debates (jointly with CNN), but the difference is that PEOPLE ACTUALLY WATCH THE SUPER BOWL.

9. eTrade baby ad – the web-quality video angle is a clever way to hide the weirdness of seeing a baby talk – i always think when they use CGI to make the babies talk, it looks funky. Plus the kid spits up, which is classy. I sort of wish it was projectile vomiting, though.

10. Tom Brady is really getting his ass kicked. This is keeping the Giants in the game.

11. Wall-E – I’m a fan of all things Pixar, but Wall-E looks really cool. The robot looks more human than some humans I know (that guy i know who drives a lumber truck for the last 5 years, I’m looking in your direction. Oh, and also the most boring person in the world, too. You know who you are).

12. This is a lot of writing considering nobody is reading this anyway. But I’m still having fun. Sort of.

1. Bank Gothic makes its’ Super Bowl arrival! The spot for Wanted, a new movie with Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman and others. It was only a matter of time. Yeah, bank gothic!

2. GoDaddy.com ad about their original ad being rejected by Fox – this will probably drive the most traffic to any one website of the whole Super Bowl ads. As for the Danica Patrick ad, pretty low brow (but I don’t mind her talking about her beaver). Am I the only one who thinks it’s funny that Fox, of all networks, rejected an advertisement? Fox, home of the Simpsons, Family Guy, et al. BUt how many people decide to register a domain name during the super bowl?

3. Tide Mytalkingstain.com – Funny shit. I’ll check their site out. Turns out that they’re having a spoof contest to film the best spoof of their ad. Deadline in about a month. I might try to do one!

4. The Budweiser Clydesdale Rocky ad – Waste of money. Anheuser Busch grew 2% last year (which is huge dollars), but this ad couldn’t help them much.

5. Bank Gothic is back, this time in the ad for the movie Iron Man. It’s not even surprising that they used Bank Gothic in two ads in the same quarter, both of which were movies! It looks like a decent film, Robert Downey Jr. is one of my favorite Brat Pack actors.

6. Toyota Corolla ad with badgers – As a badger enthusiast (I’m talking about the Teledu, of course), this ad gets my approval.

7. It appears to me that the Giants are just not good enough. And they should have lost that fumble. When there are only 2 possessions in a quarter, it goes by much faster

8. Careerbuilder.com bleeding heart ad – That ad was made just for me. I know that feeling well (see: last job). First thought is that it was a monster.com ad, though. But good.

9. Thrillicious.com ad – Huh? Lizards doing the Thriller dance? WTF? And am I supposed to know who that dancer is? You almost can’t even tell it’s a Sobe ad. I almost missed it.

10. GMC Yukon Hybrid – Don’t fool us, GM. Part of the reason we’re fucked environmentally is due to these fucking gas guzzlers. But lots of Super Bowl ads are basically eye candy, right? So the 150 million people who see these ads probably think that GM is this green, wonderful company. Read here for a more accurate picture of what GM is all about.

11. I totally knew that was an “illegal bat” penalty on the Giants – Marcus Allen used to do that all the time with the Raiders. Turned a probable field goal into a punt. Ouch. Bad form in a Super Bowl

12. Planters “Instinctively Good” spot – Funny. I never thought about cashew oil being an aphrodisiac. Someone pointed out that half the Super Bowl viewers are women, and this might rub many of them the wrong way. But I think it’s a funny ad with a unique twist at the end that could give some brand recognition down the road.

13. Justin Timberlake Pepsi ad. Finally. When I think about Justin Timberlake from this point forward, I’ll also think of the word “suck”. I guess that’s already the word that came to mind…

14. Doritos mouse trap human-sized mouse ad – Interesting they can have an ad where a guy beats the shit out of someone, but you can’t use the word “beaver” in an ad.

15. The Giants’ defense is much better than I expected. Brady is getting his ass kicked.

16. I just looked through the 500+ most recently posted photos that contain the term “Super Bowl” on Flickr and was surprised to not see any photos from the big game.

17. Geico caveman ad – John Lehr (actor in my favorite film, Noah Baumbach’s Kicking and Screaming) is one of the Cavemen! I had no idea until a few weeks ago, but I started watching “10 items or less” on TBS, which also stars John Lehr. Good times.