The Stupidest Cabin

This must be the most ridiculous "On Location" the NYT has ever done.

"It may not have a bathroom or a kitchen, but it is a dream of Victoriana: stacks of Limoges china with tiny rosebud patterns; chandeliers dripping crystal; billows of tissue-paper garlands."

Yep, sounds pretty reasonable to me!

Crusading Citizens

Mrs. Hill's crusade against bottled water in Concord, Mass is an admirable cause - esp for an 82 year old. I hope she wins! I had no idea the International Bottled Water Association even existed. For regulation purposes it makes sense (I guess?), but also it's kind of sickening.

New favorite band

Presenting...LADYTRON.

Four albums to date, heavy on the synth. Four members of unknown gender.



Here are two of my favorite tracks.



I mostly enjoy the ghostly voice of lead singer Helen Marnie, heard in Playgirl.

Box Office Prediction: TS3

For Pixar to render one frame of Toy Story 3, a computer needs seven hours to sort through all the codes and algorithms and graphics. A film two hours long needs about 50,000 days to render. 50,000 days.

Fortunately Pixar owns many computers, dropping the production time to 3 years for a movie. And everyone loves Woody and Buzz enough to make this the No. 1 movie of the year! (until Harry Potter)

Toy Story 3: $425 million

Dishes

I enjoy certain food blogs (if the writer/food isn't to annoying), but lately I think it's not just for the recipes. The plates are really catching my eye. It's fun to see what dishes people own (probably because I hate my own hand-me-down set so much). Half of the time I don't even care for the food being displayed. That aside, food presentation is fun to check out. Isn't it strange/awesome that we've reached a point where people are saying "Wait, don't eat just yet! Gotta get a pic so I can blog this meal."

photo Normally I don't like to see actual humans in these pictures, but I'll make an exception because Fiestaware plates are my all time favorites.

photo In this one, I think we can all appreciate the great use of the counter top as background.

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Sunny Thoughts on a Sunny Friday Morning

If you're like me, reading this will ruin your morning...but also if you're like me, it helps to have an idea of the worst possible thing that could ever happen to all of us (obviously related to the BP spill). Usually what actually happens is less severe, so I like to brace myself for the worst and enjoy a pleasant surprise when it turns out less bad.

First read this short story, which appeared in the New Yorker right before Christmas last year. It's short, and sort of funny!

Then read this Gawker post, which is just a Gawker post and based on a commenter on a message board blah blah blah. But even if (especially if?) the information is twice-removed from official sources, it was scary. Another comment:

"The loss of that much marine bio-mass would be absolutely disastrous. The social implications alone would strain every governmental and social institution. People from the coasts who rely on seafood as the staple of their diet would begin to migrate in search of food. These people number into the tens to hundreds of millions. National borders would become non-existent. Governmental structures would fall due to the social unrest of such an huge influx of people in such a short period of time. Famine, plague, ethnic border wars, and the collapse of authority would be just the tip of the iceberg. If that oil were able to do as much damage as is suggested (and there is no proof that it can; I'm not sold, but I'm considering the implications as an intellectual exercise), then we could very well see another dark age for mankind."

Is there any reason this won't happen? If you know some stuff about science, I want to know!

And sorry for the bum out, but I hope you all have a great weekend!

Who's to Blame? Us!

President Obama says "BP will pay" for the oil spill. And they should. They ran the Deep Horizon oil rig, neglected using adequate safety measures, and watched it explode hours after an inspection team left. Yesterday BP announced it will pay $20 billion to make the Gulf better than ever.

Terrific. Good. Yay.

That ain't enough.

BP is directly responsible, sure, but at the end of the line is, well, us.

The world's growing thirst for oil will be sated by someone, somewhere, as long as there's profit to be had. BP's relief wells will generate money for them, which will probably go straight to the relief fund, because it's poetic that way. But until we get full of oil, this will happen again, somewhere, to somebody.

I hope Obama uses this disaster for political capital. Normally a queasy tactic (Bush+9/11=Iraq War), the president can use the spill for kicking the oil habit. It was one of his campaign planks, and now's the time to get it done.

Whatever Happened to...

Ben Stiller and Tom Cruise?

I missed the MTV VMA Awards. For the 5000th year in a row! How will I ever stay current? FourFour's recap caught me up. The show looks worse than I remember it being! MTV - always current! One piece did catch my eye - the fact that Tom Cruise came out as Les Grossman from Tropic Thunder and danced with J.Lo. WTF! The character wasn't even funny in the movie he was being paid to be funny in!

Today I find this item - that Ben Stiller is developing a movie solely for Tom's Les Grossman character. As if that link isn't warning enough...this movie is going to be horrible! I know this is a boring/standard complaint but why does Hollywood keep making terrible movies??? Tom Cruise has pretty much annoyed me ever since I was old enough to realize he's bonkers (aka age 5). Aside from Cocktail I really can't stand him/his body of work.

But Ben? I had a little more respect for him. How can you hate a guy who marries Melody from Hey Dude? Exactly you can't. Now I can. Ben Stiller isn't funny anymore. I saw him on Extras and heard rumors of his crazy outbursts, but I took awhile to believe it. Now I think he's just out of touch with what is funny and it's believable that he rages about that. It's a sad day when the once "funny" and "hot" guys of my childhood are revealed to be out of touch dads with anger issues.

Sister Blog Alert: Gone Fashion'!

It's been a quiet week here on JOP, with two of your writers on vacation and the rest of us just busy in general. But hold onto your hats because there's a new blog in the Hi Fever/Jar of Paperclips family, and it's all about a topic close to your hearts and mine: clooooothessss!

A committee decided on the name, so don't blame me if it's cheezy. Gone Fashion' (like gone fishin', get it??!) is a joint effort among most of JOP and most of Hi Fever, and its mission is pretty similar to all of these blogs'. That is to say, writing about whatev we want, whenev we want!

If you have any ideas for topics, for GF or HF or JOP, send us an email at hifever40@yahoo.com or

jarofpaperclips@gmail.com.

JOP is still taking advice and although we have an enormous backlog, we'd like to hear what's going on right now! GF has sort of an advice feature, obviously specifically to do with fashion. So drop us a line and don't be a stranger!

Splits

This news really blew my mind - Al & Tipper Gore are separating after 40 years of marriage. The Clintons are still together guys! What gives???