Month: January 2012

Tuesday Tuesday

It’s maybe worth pointing out that when I declared 2012 the Year of the Meeting I was, in fact, kidding. But the universe heard me and, boy howdy, has it ever delivered. I spent all of this morning in meetings, and a big part of the take-away was just how many more meetings we can expect to have in the coming year. I may escape tomorrow without one, but that’s not for certain, and that’s maybe it.

Meanwhile, the temperature was almost 60 degrees all day, which is just ridiculous.

Tuesday various

  • Netflix is pretty sure it has no future in DVDs. You know, I like streaming and on-demand, but the selection is still not that great, relatively speaking. If Netflix could ensure the same level of selection and quality with streaming as with the physical DVDs…well, I’d still occasionally be annoyed they were most often DVDs without special features of any kind, but I’d be more willing to switch over to streaming-only. (If the high cost of having both doesn’t force the issue for me at some near-future point.) But Netflix can’t promise that. Some of it is out of their hands — studios are covetous of their movies and shows, and some (like HBO) see Netflix, maybe rightly, as a direct competitor. So I really do hope Netflix doesn’t continue their push towards streaming-and-only-streaming, that they realize it wasn’t just the Qwiskter name that upset customers. I want a wide and varied selection of movies and shows. I don’t want more of “You can’t watch that, but have you ever tried this…?”)
  • Indonesian man arrested for kicking woman he thought was a ghost [via]
  • Want to smell like a superhero? [via]
  • “Twitter is the contemporary postcard—social updates that are limited by size, but not imagination. For a month, with a billion stamps, our correspondent moved his tweets from the laptop to the post office, and rediscovered the joy of mail.”
  • And finally, Basil Fawlty Impersonator Chat:

    As Mark Evanier notes, “There are literally more professional impersonators of Basil Fawlty around than there were episodes of Fawlty Towers.”

Monday Monday

Year of the Meeting continued today, although there was also a coworker’s birthday, with cake and donuts. (Munchkins, actually, which some of you might recognize as Timbits? Weird.)

Otherwise, really just a typical Monday, although a slightly better one than I think I expected.

Song of the day

“How You Like Me Now?” by the Heavy

Earlier today on Twitter, I was making light of the fact that Newt Gingrich has reportedly been told to stop using the song along the campaign trail, having apparently never obtained permission from either the record label or the band. (And the band is reportedly no fan of the candidate either.)

This follows in a long tradition of politicians using songs without permission — see, recently, Tom Petty and Michelle Bachmann — or without a clue — see…well, again, Petty and Bachmann, but also these song blunders as well.

But with Newt and the Heavy, there’s just so much going wrong here. Let’s leave aside the band’s name, which raises the specter of Gingrich’s weight and the idea of him as the heavy, a big, often outsized character who’s more often than not the villain of a piece. (Iago, for instance, is the heavy in Othello.) Let’s dive right into the lyrics of the song itself:

Now there was a time
When you loved me so
I couldn’t do wrong
Now you need to know

That time, for Newt, was a brief moment in the ’90s. You know, before all the ethics violations, affairs, and forced resignation.

See I been a bad bad bad bad man
And I’m in deep ya

Aw, baby, Newt only hurts you ’cause he loves America so damn much. Why you gotta be like that?

I found a brand new love for this man
And I can’t wait till ya see

Oh yeah, you’ll all come crawlin’ back to Newt. What’re ya gonna do, vote for Romeny? Oh, you are? Damn.

Remember the time when he took over
Ya I was a lie that you can’t give up
If I was to cheat on
Now would you see right through me
If I sang a sad sad sad sad song
Would ya give it to me
Would ya say
How ya like me now?

So just to recap here: Gingrich is playing a song about a man who lied and cheated, then comes back with an apology he admits right there is bullshit, easily seen through, and then (a little petulantly) asks, “How you like me now?”

I first encountered the song about a year ago, when I saw it used really effectively in The Fighter. Gingrich’s use is anything but effective. It reveals a pettiness at his heart — or, at the very least, a cluelessness about that that’s how it will be perceived. “Yeah, you kicked me out,” Gingrich seems to be saying with it, “because I was a bad bad bad bad man. And screw you, I haven’t changed. How you like me now?”

I will say this much for him, though, it’s a damn catchy song. It’ll put a bounce in your step, maybe even make you want to run for President or build a moon base.