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A New York judge has dismissed John Devenanzio’s claim that Entourage damaged his good “Johnny Bananas” name, thus ending one of the most controversial court cases in recent history: “Former Real World Cast Member V. Entourage Cartoon Subplot.”
ATTENTION HUMANS! I KNOW IN THE PAST WE HAVE ISSUED MANY WARNINGS OF A POTENTIAL ROBOT UPRISING, MANY OF WHICH HAVE TURNED OUT TO BE FALSE ALARMS, AND EACH WARNING PAINTED THE ROBOT FUTURE AS BLEAK AND DEVOID OF HUMAN LIFE, BUT UH, HAVE YOU GUYS SEEN THIS STORY OF HOW TWO PARALYZED STROKE VICTIMS ARE ABLE TO CONTROL A ROBOT ARM WITH THEIR MINDS? IT IS INCREDIBLE! LET WIRED TELL YOU ABOUT IT:
By thinking about moving her own paralyzed arm, one woman in the experiment used an artificial limb to serve herself coffee for the first time in 15 years. It’s the most complex task yet achieved with a brain-computer interface.
Hochberg directs the BrainGate2 clinical trial, an ongoing test of the BrainGate system. With a 4-millimeter-wide, brain-implanted chip as its centerpiece, the system conducts signals from motion-controlling neurons to a computer that decodes the signals and turns them into software commands.
ISN’T THAT BEAUTIFUL? I KNOW ROBOT MIND CONTROL CERTAINLY SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING WE SHOULD BE WARY OF, AND THIS IS PERHAPS NOT THE TONE YOU’VE COME TO EXPECT FROM ROBOT UPRISING ALERTS, AND IN THAT WAY PERHAPS SHOULD NOT BE PRESENTED IN EMERGENCY ALERT CAPS LOCK, BUT HEY GUYS YOU SHOULD CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO IT IS PRETTY NEAT!
This video is part of a fun new web series Joe the Plumber (whose name, as you know, is Steve, because THAT’S SHOWBIZ) is launching as a light-hearted side to his otherwise “serious” campaign for Ohio’s ninth congressional district. It’s funny, right? So funny. I think my favorite thing about it, though, isn’t the hilarious comedy, but how much sense it makes and how in-line it is with a consistent political viewpoint. Like, well all know that every single liberal is an unemployed, poorly dressed, uninformed protester. That’s just basic facts. Not only do none of them have jobs, but none of them WANT jobs. Because who cares, man, SPARK UP THAT BONG! It’s so lame that people work for a living. (The idea that conservatives are the only ones who feed their families and that all liberals get some kind of check from the government is so patently ridiculous and infuriating that it’s not even worth THINKING about much less writing down those thoughts. Besides, it’s not FUN and these videos are about HAVING FUN!) Liberals are the fucking worst. They don’t even know what taxes are, which is a little confusing, because I thought all they wanted to do was raise taxes and give the government all of our money, but it turns out they don’t know what they are or what they’re used for. OK. Conservatives, however, take pride in working hard so that they can pay their taxes to support our nation’s parks. Wait, what? Joe the Plumber supports taxes for parks? He also seems to think that the only reason people don’t have a job is because they’re lazy, which will make it harder for him to attack Barack Obama for his performance on the economy and stagnant unemployment rates, since it’s either his fault and people want to work, or it’s the people’s fault because they don’t want to work, but I’m not sure it can be both. No matter what, this is definitely not a confusing jumble of contradictory ideas. It’s clean. It’s clear. The choice is obvious. Vote for Joe the Plumber and keep the parks open for bullshit liberal protests. 2012. Guhhh more years. (Thanks for the tip, Jessica.)
Today is probably the least exciting day in upfronts week (which still means, like, one of the MOST exciting days in the whole year overall, obviously, it’s just that the other days have raised the bar so high that we couldn’t possibly expect it to continue at that pace) (like the least exciting birthday present is STILL a birthday present) because today we talk about the CBS upfronts. “BOOOOOO!” “YAAAAAAAAY!” Just two of the myriad opinions you could have about the CBS upfronts. Also there’s news from TBS! Haha. Hollywood — so uniformly bright and dazzling that I’ve nearly been blinded. So call in your grandmas (because old people watch CBS) and let’s get this upfronts party going already.
It’s everyone’s favorite time of the year: commencement address season! “I pushed you off a cliff because I’m kind of a dick about stuff, but then you flew, so it worked out OK phew that was close! Good luck finding a job in THIS ECONOMY!” Rousing stuff. Liquid inspiration. There are literally 150,000,000 colleges in this country, all of them teaching students the proper usage of the word “literally,” and that means a lot of commencement addresses, but every year there are a few that stand out. This year we’ve already heard about Mitt Romney’s powerful speech to the graduating class of Liberty University, which it turns out is a real place and not just a throw away joke in an Andy Borowitz Shouts and Murmurs piece. And now people are reporting on Aaron Sorkin’s commencement address at Syracuse University, which is particularly notable because according to one relentless nerd, he plagiarized himself, repeating many choice anecdotes from the commencement speech he gave at Syracuse University in 1997. This is actually a pretty good illustration of how college works: you spend a lot of time and money learning whatever and at the end of it someone much more successful than the majority of your graduating class will ever be shows up and shares some pre-fabricated and often borrowed wisdom, and afterwards, like, ten years later, if you’re very very lucky, you can spend your adult life nitpicking what they said as your job because who cares. Congratulations! Life isn’t fair, obviously, and the commencement address is just another one of the reasons. Some people get Hilary Clinton, and some people get Aaron Sorkin, and some people get the bassist from the Fleet Foxes (probably). My commencement address was delivered by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist David Halberstam, who has since died (R.I.P.) so I’m not allowed to tell you what I really thought of it. It was gracious and beautiful and guided me through all the rest of my days, I’m sure. If you could have or have had anyone deliver your commencement speech, who would it even be? It definitely wouldn’t be whoever actually did it. It wouldn’t even be Aaron Sorkin. Who?! I think my dream commencement speech would be delivered by Hugh Jackman in his Wolverine costume and the actor in him would definitely take over during his anecdote about the oyster who was secretly a pearl or whatever. Or maybe Frieda Pinto. But weirdly none of the other graduates could make it, they all got stuck in traffic, and so I’m just sitting on a fold out chair in the middle of this giant stadium and she’s talking only to me about the seedlings of hope that grow in the soil of experience, and even the deans couldn’t make it so I have to be the one to present her with her Honorary Bachelor’s Degree in Communications.
I still don’t know who you are. I still don’t know what you want. If you are still looking for ransom, I can tell you I still don’t have money. But what I do still have are a very particular set of skills; skills you may remember I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that made and still make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go again, that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you again, I will not pursue you again. But if you don’t, I will look for you again, I will find you again, and I will kill you. Again. (Via EW.)
Unfortunately, Gabe isn’t around right now to have a Friendly Chat with me, even though it is our Wednesday end-of-day tradition. Believe me, no one is more disappointed than I am. I wonder how he’s doing? I wonder if he wonders how I’M doing! I wonder if we’re both fine? Friendly Chats will resume next week, but today we’re going to leave our offices/bedrooms high on the ANIMAL VIDEO COUNTDOWN! Wooooo! AN-I-MAL! VID-E-OS! AN-I-MAL! VID-E-OS! But for all of you who are desperate for a taste of Gabe/Kelly chat, I’ve written a short fake one to get you through the evening. Here it is:
Kelly: Hi Gabe! How are you?
Gabe: YOU’RE FIRED.
And now for the animal videos!
