Michael Lewis, the author of “The New, New Thing,” recently rented out the biggest mansion in New Orleans, a house he’d lusted after as a boy and found overwhleming once he moved in. He also found that being inside a house thats way beyond your means, even if you’re renting it, says a lot about both the American psyche and the subprime mess the US currently finds itself in.
The Three Who Rule tackled “Planet of the Ood” this week, one of the better efforts of Series Four and, due to the strange nature of the Ood visage, a chance to make many jokes about ladyparts. There were also terrible puns involving the word “ood.” Oodly enough (ouch.) Enjoy, all!
Matt Taibbi (who usually writes for Rolling Stone) has posted a cynical, angry and heartfelt screed on Smirking Chimp about what Sarah Palin’s candidacy says about middle-class America’s love of image over substance and blind consumerism over thoughtful discourse. It’s certainly biased and bile-filled, but it’s also exceptionally well written and not without some truth.
As seen above, Sarah Palin’s grasp of geopolitics leaves something to be desired. And there’s the outside chance she could be the President one day, so there’s that.
RED, the company created by Oakley founder Jim Hannard, has sent the SCARLET back to the woodshed. Why? Apparently the emergence of DSLR cameras like the Nikon D90 and the Canon 5D MkII that can shoot in HD (though in the case of the 5D, at the indie-unfriendly frame rate of 30p) has forced RED to rethink what they’re trying to accomplish in the prosumer video space.
Honestly, it’s about time all camera manufacturers took a step back and figured out how to merge SLR and HD video in a package that serves both filmmakers and photographers. There’s no reason, with the emergence of fast and plentiful hard drive space, huge memory cards for on-camera storage, and lens adapters that already graft SLR lenses onto HD camcorders, that a new class of camera shouldn’t emerge that doesn’t follow the old paradigms of tape-based shooting. The 5D and D90 are an important first step, and RED’s backtracking looks to be the next step in a saga that I’ll be very interested to see come to fruition.
The Three Who Rule waxed eloquent this week upon “The Fires of Pompeii”, one of the highlights of Season Four and ruminated upon a surfeit of news, most of it debunking headlines from the Sun (which will later prove to be true, most likely.) Hilarity and shenanigans for all! Or…something. Anyway, enjoy the episode.
At least, according to the latest obituary for the book business in the NY Metro. It seems a tsunami of problems, including the fact that the publishing world is beginning to resemble Hollywood with its reliance on a few overly expensive mega-hits instead of a solid midlist. Not good for a book lover such as myself.
After the utter crappines of Jeff Green leaving 1UP last week (though you can check in on him on Jeff’s new blog), it was inevitable that the rest of the Brodeo would eventually follow suit, and it looks like Shawn Elliot, one of the smartest guys in games journalism, is following Jeff’s lead and moving from reporting to game development. While I wish both of them luck, I loved the irreverence, profanity and keen insight of GFW Radio, and it’ll be sad to not have it on my podcast playlist for a mid-week laugh. Listen to their last show and tip your hat to a fine bunch of fellas.
Update: The whole thing might be a hoax. Phew! And yuck, this egg on my face is sticky.
Further update: Or maybe it isn’t. About an hour into the GFW podcast, Elliot says he’s going o 2K Boston. There’s two more hours to go, so he may very well change his tune three times for all I know.
And with that, Radio Free Skaro reached 100 episodes. It’s been a strange trip for the Three Who Rule to internet femto-celebrity and renown as slightly amusing Whovian reprobates, but here we are. And we celebrate this milestone by beginning our Season Four commentaries with “Partners in Crime.” Allons-y!
