Day: April 5, 2010

The McBournie Minute: A new dimension of crappy

Technology is advancing faster and faster these days. In my relatively short lifetime, we’ve gone from UHF/VHF to cable/satellite to digital cable to high-def to Internet TV. The next big step is nearly here. No, I’m not talking about smell-o-vision, as Looney Tunes predicted would happen in the “future” in the 1990s. I’m talking about 3-D television.

We’re already seeing it in movie theaters, and a handful of people actually care about it. It’s like TV companies are following the cues of the movie industry. They do widescreen, we do widescreen (decades later), they do digital projection resulting in a sharper image, we do high-def.

When we heard a bit over a year ago that 3-D movies were coming to theaters near us, we all laughed, picturing the blue and red glasses. We were wrong, instead its glasses that look just as bad but are the same color. And it’s ready to make its way into our homes. Continue reading The McBournie Minute: A new dimension of crappy

NEWSFLASH: Michael Steele half-right

Michael Steele has had a rough year as chairman of the Republican National Committee, a job that is normally faceless in the media … unless your party is intentionally touting you in the public eye to look “totally not racist.” (Seriously, try to name his predecessor without resorting to Google or Wikipedia.)

As a direct result of this situation, he’s been a punching bag for mostly his own party, making him effectively the Donovan McNabb of Republican politics. Every other week, he’s been almost fired or admonished like he left a wax build-up on Judge Smail’s golf shoes.

So, when a viewer of ABC’s Good Morning America asked the $50 million question, Steele responded that, yes, he does have “a smaller margin for error because he is African American.”

Unfortunately, he didn’t finish that thought to make it completely correct: wouldn’t it be nice if all politicians were held to the standard that the black ones are? That every spending incongruity over $2000 were investigated with as much zeal? That every ill-planned trip to Hawaii be reconsidered? That any time a politician steps in it, their future in politics is questioned?

The skies are getting friendlier

Women, so it is said, are people too. It is important that we menfolk treat them as equals, otherwise they’ll do something crazy like ban alcohol again. In Spain, it’s no different.

Flight attendants for Air Comet, which is also probably the name for a Nerf gun, have gone for nine months without pay. They’re not happy about it for obvious reasons, and they want people to pay attention to them. So naturally, they have posed for a nude calendar–three months into the year–and are selling it to get people informed about their situation, if you know what we mean.

Take that, Air Comet! You can’t just use flight attendants as objects!