Magnusdopus’s Vox blog

For the record : I like Ron Paul, but I like Digg better.  And the Ron Paul supporters have just gone too far.  To sum up, his supporters have taken to using Digg as a running Ron Paul infomercial.  A large percentage of them will vote on anything and I mean anything related to Ron Paul.

To correct this, I am personally offering a bounty of $100 payable by paypal who can ever meet the following challenge.
Create a Digg link that makes it to the most popular page for the better part of a day.  The link title and description should be some piece of Ron Paul fluff - oh he won the straw poll, oh he won the maryland debate, blah blah.  But the link, should go to a goatse picture. 

At this point, we will collect the names of those Ron Paul morons and... well I haven't gotten that far.  But whomever submits this story will get $100 via paypal.  Better yet, let's get the ball rolling and see how much we can raise the pot....

first off a confession, i used to work at a social network called - xxx.  at its high point, techcrunch labelled us as the myspace 2.0.  a great core community was established and loved the product.  unfortunately, this group was not the target demographic and the company had to reinvent itself  i got frustrated and left. 

i decided to join vox because it seemed like the next best thing.  it had functionality equal to or superior to xxx.  however, when it comes to community, vox leaves much to be desired.  the problem methinks isn't the tool, it's the audience.  web2_0 people are half cool half lame.  for one thing, 90% they'll try something, like it, but not take the time to invest in it.  case in point, this blog post.  i'm already tired of it, and i've got more important things to do, so i'll have to continue at some other time.

I'm a coffee newbie, but Peet's Major Dickson is my favorite so far.

NYTimes just posted an article on arguably the most dominant television program thus far - American Idol. 

http://news.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/02/28/the-idol-juggernaut/#comment-41860

As a person who watches American Idol religiously, I can say that people who do get it, are not idiots.  American Idol has done more for pop music than any show since Ed Sullivan.  When the music industry was at its greatest in the 60s, there was a number of stars whose success was from their god given talent.  A perfect example would be Aretha Franklin.  Ask any music critics, her's is the greatest voice of the last 2 or 3 generations.  But sadly, the music industry has failed to produce a similar talent.  In the industry's estimation, a star cannot be born unless they have the full package - Mariah, Whitney or Christina.

This season, American Idol has found a girl, Lakisha Jones, whose power and spirit reminds us of Aretha.  Now visually, Lakisha is nothing like what the industry music dreams of.  She's heavy set, dark, and could use some dental work.  But when she sings, she sings with every ounce of her spirit.  The very first song she sang on AI, was about one of the top performances ever on TV.  It had Simon Cowell, the show's most vociferous critic, speechless. 

Without AI,there is no question we would have never heard of Lakisha.  We would never have heard of any of the talented singers on AI.  And there is no question of the show's talent as Jennifer Hudson, an AI loser, has singularly proved by winning the Oscar. 

Just wanted to do a quick review of Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men, before I go off and work.

• Love the look of this movie.  The production design.  Cuaron's selection as director is genius.  The Third World and its detritus has made its way into the First World.  The glimpses of future mixed with decay suggest a restrained Terry Gilliam.
  
• Weird story.  Part post apocalypse, part slow apocalypse in progression, part Nativity story, part comment on terrorism and the new world order.  Its a vision of a world that could happen.
• Action.  I felt like I was playing Gears of War.  The action is tense for an hour. 
  
• Weaknesses  - After 1h39 minutes you are pretty sure this is the best picture of the year, but then the movie ends somewhat abruptly and you end up feeling cheated.  Not that its a bad ending.  You just realize that you were never emotionally involved with the characters, much less the entire display of humanity, so it doesn't matter what happens.
  

In which fictional world/universe/land/city would you most like to live?
Submitted by glenn is the new chuck.  

Dune. Desert Planet.  I love the combination of mysticism, science fiction, religion, and world empires.  If I ever have a year off, I would write a universe with those elements.

Dune trailer

Dune

I've been monitoring Viacom's latest moves on the internet.  They are very interesting.  It appears that after losing out on MySpace they are finally executing on a new Internet strategy.  Yesterday, we learned about their investment in TagWorld, primarily for its web2.0 technology.  Today, they purchased RateMyProfessors.com.  In my opinion, this is a great acquisition.  One of the strengths of MySpace is its ability to address the needs of kids, teenagers.  Almost every student, whether you are in college or high school, does a little research about their teacher.  Who to take?  Are they a tough grader, or an easy A?  Which teacher is hot?
    The question is, how will this all integrate together?  Will we see URGE (MTV's music site), TagWorld tech, and RateMyProfessors come together under one meta-site?  At the very least, today shows that Viacom is heavily in the game.  I expect to hear about more purchases by MTVN soon.

Sure, most sequels stink, but what movie really needs a sequel?

In general, fantasy movies that depict an alternate reality.  A movie can only capture a small slice of that universe.  Successive movies can explore other aspects of the world. 

They were supposed to make a sequel to Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits.
Every decade, they should make a new Forrest Gump movie.  Forrest in the 80s becoming a break-dancer.  At the Ollie North trial.

Video: Show us your favorite movie scene.
Submitted by Caroline.

Video: Show us your favorite movie scene.
Submitted by Caroline.

Hopefully, this is from "Mr Smith Goes to Washington".  It's not pulling up in Videos.