Guitar Hero Debuts New Ad Featuring Unlikeable Personalities, Bobby Knight

Somewhat appropriately, Rick Pitino remains primarily in the background while Bobby Knight, Coach K and Roy Williams all bust out varying degrees of awesome. I have to say, I particularly enjoyed the stunned expression on Roy’s face when Metallica had the nerve to interrupt them. Krzyzewski’s performance is pretty great, too.

I also wonder if the inherent irony of anyone from Metallica calling somebody else “Pops” in 2009 was deliberate. It almost has to be, doesn’t it?

More fine work from the people who also managed to make A-Rod and Kobe relatively likeable in their last set of ads.

This’ll Be Hard To Top For Best Shot Of The Tournament

Marcus Denmon delivering a gut punch before halftime with a buzzer-beating shot from about 65 feet to put Mizzou up by 13 at the half:

Hopefully the NCAA doesn’t get too enthusiastic about deleting this. (So far, so good.)

Newspapers One Step Ahead Of The Internet, Because You Can’t Eat The Internet

Say what you will about the lumbering dinosaur of an industry in which I currently work, but nobody can accuse them of not thinking outside the box. Who else would’ve come up with something as needlessly idiosyncratic AP Style? Who else would’ve thought to lay off entire workforces for weeks at a time to save on the bills? Who else would’ve thought to give their content away for free and then expect people to still pay for that content at a later time? Who else would’ve thought, in a time when ad revenue was in steep decline due to the simultaneous deaths of the industry and the U.S. economy, to start selling edible ad space?

Imagine opening a Sunday newspaper and amongst the coupons is an advertisement for a new sports drink imploring you to lick it for a sample. Sound like an early April Fools’ Day joke? Well, it isn’t. In fact the marketing folks at newspaper ink giant U.S. Ink Corp. think it is one of the few things that can save the newspaper industry from oblivion.

Other ideas: A 10,000 percent price increase, or asking people nicely to stop using the internet to get their news and opinion pieces.

Life Imitates Art: Lifetime Presents “She’s Too Young: Oklahoma City”

The plot of an all-time classic Lifetime Original Movie appears to be playing out in the Sooner State. For whatever reason, WBAL in Baltimore has the scoop:

OKLAHOMA CITY — Health officials have identified an outbreak of syphilis occurring among teenagers younger than age 18 in central Oklahoma.

Oklahoma State Department of Health officials are alarmed because syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease most often seen in older age groups and can have significant health outcomes if undiagnosed and untreated, KOCO-TV reported. Officials are also concerned that the outbreak may spread to counties beyond central Oklahoma.They reported that 10 teenagers have been diagnosed with syphilis in central Oklahoma during the past four weeks, compared to 15 teens with the disease all of last year.

Health officials believe the growing popularity of teens attending parties where unprotected group sexual activity is encouraged may be fostering the opportunities for teens to become infected, they said in a news release.

That’s right, “She’s Too Young” enthusiasts. The big day has come. The young people of Oklahoma, obviously influenced by the cinematic brilliance of Marcia Gay Harden as “frigid bitch mother” and Alexis Dziena as “main syphilis girl”, have emulated television once again and embraced the glamourous way of life that the Lifetime Original depicted for those girls who shtupped the cool guy/syphilitic porn freak.

Joking aside, if the film has taught us anything, it’s that:

A person can contract and spread syphilis through oral, anal and vaginal sex, or through other intimate contact including kissing when a syphilis sore is present in the mouth.

People with the disease may not know they have it, because the primary symptom is a painless sore.

Side effects may include being attracted to the most unlikely heterosexual high school student imaginable. I mean, seriously. What a fag.

Better stick ‘em all, because someone — perhaps even this guy — already has.

You can, and should, watch the amazing “She’s Too Young” on YouTube by clicking here.

What Happens When You Mix A Tripping Lindsay Lohan With Old Batman Scripts?

Fornarina!

New Jersey State Board of Cosmetology and Hairstyling: Worse Than Hitler?

UPDATE: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED (Also, big ups to Jason Nark for his tireless work on this beat.)

I happened upon a link to this story while performing one of my daily “pubic hair” fetish searches on Google at work the other day. After I read the fantastically cringeworthy headline and couldn’t really glean the premise of the article, I started to read the actual article and was quickly able to ascertain that:

N.J. salon owners to state: Mind your own “B” wax

actually meant

The painful Brazilian wax and its intimate derivatives are in danger of being stripped from salon and spa menus if a recent proposal to ban genital waxing is passed by the state’s Board of Cosmetology and Hairstyling.

Needless to say, I was outraged.

Look, I hate to get political on this blog, but let’s face it. A lot of people (okay, mostly in New Jersey) view the Garden State’s government as one of the most corrupt, and/or out-of-touch groups of politicos in the entire nation. To me, this is yet another example.

How many of those fatcats and bureaucrats up in Trenton do you think really know what a Brazilian wax is? Am I really supposed to have faith in the idea that Government Representative Anthony T. Monaco is gravely concerned about the inherent dangers of the Brazilian wax? I don’t know, it seems pretty far-fetched.

What seems more likely, given the precedent that has been set, is that one or more parties involved in the New Jersey State Board of Cosmetology and Hairstyling is the patsy of some sort of radical Christian pro-pubic hair lobbyist group that doesn’t believe in a woman’s fundamental right to choose the most attractive look for her vagina.

To me this proposal is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn’t about yelling, and this isn’t about politics. This is about the human body, and if that sounds corny, so be it.

Apparently I’m not the only one who feels this way.

By Law, We Are Required To Have A March Madness-Related Post

FINAL UPDATE: Obama wins.

3/21/09, MIDNIGHT UPDATE: I’m writing this at about midnight on Friday night/Saturday morning, just moments after I finished watching one of my Final Four teams, Wake Forest, not only lose but get absolutely embarrassed by #13 Cleveland State. With all due respect to Cleveland State… how the fuck does that happen? Now, I’ll say this. I wasn’t crazy about the Wake Forest pick when I made it. I was, shall we say, aided (hindered, really) by some statistical analysis. But the bottom line is that, as absurd as “the eyeball test” may sound, the hindsight of knowing how mediocre the Demon Deacons were down the stretch should’ve kept me from being stupid enough to pick them as a Final Four team. I still think Louisville is being overrated, but it looks like it’s their bracket. Kansas is probably the only threat left for them. I have no faith in Michigan State.

And speaking of teams I have no faith in… I’ve decided that next year in my brackets, I’m going to try to boycott any school with either decidedly Mormon ties, or that is simply located in Utah. (These two tend to go hand-in-hand anyway.) This is the second year in a row that I’ve been royally fucked by BYU, with Utah and Utah State both joining the ‘09 party, as well. I’ve had enough of this. You can bet your ass that regardless of anything that happens in or around June, the Utah Jazz will not receive consideration from this end as the NBA Champion. Fuck Utah.

And what an abortion Clemson turned out to be, too. This one’s gotta be on me. I had them going, as I recall, to the Sweet Sixteen a year ago and they choked. Still, I somehow talked myself into them this year. Once again, the numbers suggested they might have a run in them. Never mind the fact that they still can’t make a free throw that might as well have screamed at me ***PERHAPS THEY WON’T BE TRUSTWORTHY***. I figured, hey, let’s give ‘em another shot, maybe they got the choking out of their systems last year. Then they lost to a team that probably should’ve been in the NIT. (Though, to be fair, they did manage to beat Duke — an ACC team that’s better than Clemson — twice this year. Ah, more hindsight.) I think I’m going to add another rule for next year, and that’ll be to just knock Clemson out of the dance in the first round and save myself the trouble.

So, to conclude, my strategy for next year, based impulsively on the first two days of the NCAA Tournament, goes like this:

1.) Boycott Utah.
2.) Boycott any school with notable ties to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
3.) Do not, under any circumstances, believe in Clemson.*

Hey, works for me, particularly since I this year felt obligated to abandon my traditional rules of picking against Syracuse and Duke in the early rounds.

Hey, at least Siena and Wisconsin ended up winning in OT. I have to cling to as many points I can get at this point.

Enjoy the second round!

* Fuck Wake Forest.

3/21/09, 12:39 AM UPDATE: MARCH MADNESS — MESSIAH vs. ALLEGED ANTICHRIST SCOREBOARD [END OF ROUND ONE]:
I: 22
(Total Possible Points: 156)

Barack Hussein Obama: 19
(Total Possible Points: 175)

Let’s See How Awful Late Night With Jimmy Fallon Is

I was going to live blog this, but as of this point there hasn’t been much worth noting. Instead, I’ll just occasionally post a comment of some sort, usually insulting the replacement host for Conan O’Brien. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far.

• We’re off to a great start already as Leno managed to remember Jimmy Fallon’s name but then started stammering over his guest list.
• Hey look, Conan!
• Stop fidgeting during the monologue, you irritating fuck. Jesus.