Insurance?

So I'm driving back to a friends house after eating at the Grove. We ate at that Woodranch place. We both had tri-tip but I'm pretty sure it was human. It was about the size of a humans thigh. So (insert name here) tells me about this car that some crackhead had fixed. (he didnt say he was a crackhead but...who else would do this)
So this guy decided plywood and housepaint would be the best way to fix his car.

If you love cars you have to hate this guy!

Fear of advertising?

Yesterday Afternoon I decided to go to my favorite burrito place, Chipotle. Ya gotta love burritos that are the size of a newborn. MMMMM!
So I’m walking in the outside mall part of Burbank and pass this construction site. There used to be a large theater complex there but now it looks like its going to be a new shopping complex and condos.

The thing that stopped me in my track was the barricade that surrounded the construction site. It a giant billboard for what is to come. Grinning shoppers with bag full of booty. Tipsy partiers laughing and having the time of their young demographic lives.
An artists concept of the complex adorns the barricade. This concept drawing is repeated every 100 or so yards. Below it is a disclaimer that reads something to the effect of “not to scale this is an artist interpretation”
Ok fine.
But here is the kicker…

Below the picture of the smiling white chick … Please click on the picture to read.



Whoa.

THE PAPDITS

Possibly the funniest show not to air on T.V.
I hope to god this show gets broadcast at least once. It shows how stupid reality T.V. is.
It also proves Americans are truly the most horrible people on the planet.
It is scripted mock reality.
Its the Spinal Tap of reality T.V.
Aint nothin' better than making fun of foreigners!
My brain says hate it yet... I still laugh?
Go figure?



Sadly this clip was the only thing I could find online. I found it at the website of the guy who created the titles. You can see his other concepts by clicking the title of this post.

It's about an Indian family that is supposedly immigrating to the U.S. and driving around the country in an RV to find a new home. The Indian's are actually all actors, but the unsuspecting yokels they come across in small midwestern towns have no clue. A bit mean spirited, in my personal opinion, because it makes white Americans look like idiots. (Surprise!)
Not to mention reinforcing stereotypes about greedy and naive foreigners.

The mouse had me fingered

Disney's finger scanners worry privacy advocates
By KAREN HARMEL and LAURA SPADANUTA
The Associated Press

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/KAREN HARMEL
Old finger geometry readers at Walt Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., will soon be replaced with fingerprint scanners. Disney says it uses the machines to prevent fraud and the reselling of tickets.
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- Walt Disney World, which bills itself as one of the happiest and most magical places anywhere, also may be one of the most closely watched and secure. The nation's most popular tourist attraction is beginning to scan guests' fingerprint information.

For years, Disney has recorded onto tickets the geometry and shape of visitors' fingers to prevent ticket fraud or resale, as an alternative to time-consuming photo identification checks.

By the end of September, all of the geometry readers at Disney's four Lake Buena Vista theme parks will be replaced with machines that scan fingerprint information, according to industry experts familiar with the technology. The four parks attract tens of millions of visitors each year.

"It's essentially a technology upgrade," said Kim Prunty, Walt Disney World spokeswoman. The new scanner, like the old finger geometry scanner, "takes an image, identifies a series of points, measures the distance between those points, and turns it into a numerical value."

She added, "To call it a fingerprint is a little bit of a stretch."

Too much information

But privacy advocates believe Disney has not fully disclosed the purpose of its new system. No signs are posted at the entrances detailing what information is being collected and how it is being used. Attendants at the entrances will explain the system, if asked.

"The lack of transparency has always been a problem," said Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. She said Disney's use of the technology "fails a proportionality test" by requiring too much personal information for access to rollercoasters.

"What they're doing is taking a technology that was used to control access to high-level security venues and they're applying it to controlling access to a theme park," Coney said.

George Crossley, president of the Central Florida ACLU, said, "It's impossible for them to convince me that all they are getting is the fact that that person is the ticket-holder."

Prunty downplayed privacy issues, saying the scanned information is stored "independent of all of our other systems" and "the system purges it 30 days after the ticket expires or is fully utilized." Visitors who object to the readers can provide photo identification instead -- although the option is not advertised at park entrances.

She said the new system will be easier for people to use and will reduce wait times. The old machines required visitors to insert two fingers into a reader that identified key information about the shape of the fingers. The new machines scan one fingertip for its fingerprint information. Prunty said the company does not store the entire fingerprint image, but only numerical information about certain points.

The technology ensures that multiday passes are not resold, Prunty said. A one day, one-park ticket to Walt Disney World costs $67, but the daily price falls dramatically for a 10-day pass. She said multiday pricing is the reason for the scanners. "It's very important that a guest who purchases the ticket is the guest who uses it," she said.

Biometrics expertise

Scanning fingerprint information isn't new to private businesses or the government, which scans fingerprints of visitors entering the country.

After 9-11, the federal government sought Disney's advice in intelligence, security and biometrics, which allows computers to recognize and identify people based on their unique characteristics.

The government may have wanted Disney's expertise because Walt Disney World has the nation's largest single commercial application of biometrics, said Jim Wayman, director of the National Biometric Test Center at San Jose State University.

"The government was very aware of what Disney was doing," he said.

Although Disney will not disclose who makes its fingerprint scanners, biometrics experts said the new technology is likely provided by New Mexico-based Lumidigm Inc. That company has also received funding from the CIA as well as the National Security Agency and the Defense Department, according to founder and CEO Bob Harbour.

Harbour did not confirm or deny the company's role as the provider of Disney's new scanners but said it has a "major theme park" as a client.

No images stored

Disney's choice of a fingerprint scanner worries some privacy experts, especially when compared with a finger geometry reader. "It's more information," EPIC's Coney said. "That's why law enforcement agencies have relied on fingerprints for so long."

Prunty said the company's system will not be linked to a law enforcement fingerprint database. "Truly the only application is to link the ticket with the numerical value," she said.

Harbour said the system designed for his theme park client is not compatible with a federal law enforcement database, saying, "Their protocols don't store images."

But Raul Diaz, Lumidigm's vice president of sales and marketing, said it is "easy" to change a system from capturing numerical information to storing an entire fingerprint image. "It's a software option," Diaz said. "It's changing just one command."

Coney fears Disney could share the fingerprint information, saying, "If they maintain that data, it can be used for anything." Disney's privacy policy says that it may disclose personal information when doing so can help "protect your safety or security."

"Please do not ask..."

In the sleepy lil' town of Eaglerock California there are several mom and pop shops. Most of them target post-new-age wannabe coffee swilling children of hippies but one place seems to attract a different crowd. The Boonchu Thai foot massage parlor is a total mystery.

First: What foot massage parlor would cater to handicapped people. How can they tell if they even got a foot massage let alone a quality one?
Second: Under the green sign on the window that says WOMEN AND MEN there is the word "PLEASE" What the Fuck does that mean?
Third: Just to the right of the main sign above the door is a picture of what can only be described as a bearded grinning hamburger.
Fourth: and final nail in this businesses coffin is the plea printed on the window...
"PLEASE DO NOT ASK FOR SEX"


I think every business should use this as a tag line.

Disneyland. Please do not ask for sex.
Haliburton. Please do not ask for sex.
You are watching FOX News at 10. Please do not ask for sex.

your studio and you

Matt Parker and Trey Stone cop to making "Your studio and you."

Parker said that he and Stone were paid by Universal Studios to create "Your Studio and You" in 1996, shortly after the studio had been purchased by Seagrams.

"I don't think I've seen it in four years," said Parker. "I don't even have a copy of it. They wouldn't let me have one because it was one of those things where all these celebrities agreed to do it but it couldn't get exploited - which I understand. But on the other hand, it turned out really cool


The 15-minute black-and-white film, which was created in the style of a 1950's instructional video and pokes fun of the studio, stars such industry luminaries as Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, James Cameron, Michael J. Fox, Sylvester Stallone and Demi Moore.

At that time, Parker said, both he and Stone were complete Hollywood unknowns and were sleeping on the floor of a friend's apartment. In fact, it would be a few months before most of the world would see the duo's immensely popular cartoon "The Spirit of Christmas," which featured a fight to the death between Santa Claus and Jesus and ultimately led to the "South Park" cartoon on Comedy Central and the movie "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut."

One of the few people who was familiar with the pair's work, however, was comedic filmmaker David Zucker ("Airplane," "Naked Gun" and "BASEketball"), who was a fan of "Cannibal! The Musical," a film that Parker and Stone made in college — and now a cult video classic.

Parker said Zucker called him in for a meeting and offered to let him direct the film "High School High." Parker turned him down.

"He couldn't believe that some 25-year-old punk with nothing to do would pass on it," Parker said. "And so then he really liked me I think."

Zucker phoned again a week later and explained that he and his brother Jerry had just been asked to make a short film for Universal to be played at a big coming out party Seagrams was throwing for all of its employees.

Said Parker, "David explained all this to me and said, 'But, we don't have time to do it. So we're going to have you do it.' I was like, 'OK.' And it was so funny because the way he explained it — he said: 'You know, don't worry about it because it's really funny. The script is really funny. You'll have a blast.'"

But as it turns out, when Parker and Stone showed up for the first day of shooting on Universal's back-lot, things weren't as lighthearted as promised.

Parker said that a public relations flack, who was in charge of the production, was immediately put off because Zucker had passed the job onto a complete unknown. After working through the initial hostility, though, Parker and Stone soon learned they had a much bigger problem. The "really funny" script that had been promised didn't exist. And Spielberg, Fox and Cameron were already on their way to film their segments.

"So I get on the phone with David [Zucker]," Parker said. "I was like: 'David, what the f--- are you doing to me? There's no script.'"

To which Zucker replied, "Oh, no. I meant the script I know you're going to write is going to be really funny."

"We're just, like, reeling — Matt and I — we're just like, 'what do we do?'" said Parker. "We suddenly just stopped everything and said, 'let's just do it all like a really stupid '50s industrial movie. Because then at least that part of it will be funny. And so we just started trying to shoot it like those little 'duck and cover' nuclear things from the '50s."

And so they did what any 25-year old aspiring filmmakers would do when thrust into that sort of situation — improvise.

"There isn't one thing in that show that was written more than about an hour before we shot it," said Parker. "That movie is as close to complete improv comedy as it gets."

One of the film's central themes suggests that if the studio doesn't keep in step with the times, then many things that were "once neat and thrilling" will become "old and stupid."

In one scene, for instance, Spielberg can be seen as a back-lot tram-ride operator near the "Jaws" attraction where he urges people to watch out for the attacking mechanical shark. "Ladies and gentlemen, this never happens," he dryly says to his yawning passengers. "Oh the humanity. Isn't that terrifying."

"Matt and I thought this was going to be our only thing in Hollywood," said Parker. "We were scared to death."

At another point, the film suggests that the studio needs to freshen things up a bit. That's when Cameron shows up as a handyman chanting "sweeten... enhance... beautify..." while he plants a sapling on the studio lot.

Parker said he remembered an incident while he and Stone were filming the segment with Cameron. The two were rushing around, he said, and Cameron kept trying to get them to get the shot perfect.

"Cameron was like 'Well, you're kind of shooting into the sun.' And we said, 'It's fine. It'll work. It'll work.' Then he said, 'Well, you should get a nicer background.' And we're like, 'we don't care. This is really guerilla.'"

At this point, Parker says, Cameron looked indignant and said that when he filmed things he liked to take his time. To which, Stone replied: "That's why your movies cost so damn much money."

When Cameron suggested that perhaps Stone would be fired if he was working for him, Parker could only shrug and protest: "Well, he's my best friend."

When the talk in the film turned to recruiting new talent to make the studio more hip, Sylvester Stallone is seen suggesting in his dim-witted "Rocky" voice that: "you know, it's good to be open to new talent because that way... you're more open to new talent."

Director John Singleton, who made his mark with the 1991 urban gang film "Boyz N the Hood," also turns up. He's introduced by the announcer (voiced by Parker) with:
Narrator: We've also acquired director John Singleton.
John Singleton: [to a pile of wood] And... ACTION!
Narrator: Here's John on the set of his new movie, "Shut Your Honky-Ass Mouth, Cracker-Boy."
John Singleton: And... CUT!


Demi Moore shows up looking like Donna Reed and talks about having more time to cook ham. Michael J. Fox wonders why you shouldn't ever say "no" to a sailor? As the announcer, Parker keeps suggesting that the studio needs more ceramic deer.

"You could probably make a feature film out of the experience of making that movie because it was just two dudes from college suddenly directing Steven Spielberg," Parker said. "We were up for six and a half days straight. It was the longest we'd ever gone without sleeping... It was — still to this day — the most difficult thing Matt and I have ever done.

When asked if there were any other guerilla film projects from the duo that might sneak out in the near future, Parker could only laugh.

"Oh god yeah. I mean, this is just one of 80," he said. "In college, Matt and I would shoot something every week just to do it. And then we would lose it. We've lost more films than we have that we've shot.... One that we just dug up is sort of a French film with Matt's penis dancing around by itself. It's pretty sweet. So I think that's going to be the next one to get out there."

Alright. But what ever happened to that mean-spirited PR flack that gave Parker and Stone so much trouble back in 1996?

"I wish I could remember her name," said Parker. "[She] took all the credit... and got promoted."

Please click on the title of this post to enjoy this film.