12.30.2008

MAKE: Brings it to TV


MAKE: television Preview Reel from make magazine on Vimeo.

Coming to PBS in 2009 is DIY mag MAKE:'s foray into television instruction for the masses. Some topics for the upcoming season include making your own wind power generator, a burrito blaster cannon, and 'Maker' profiles galore. Check your local PBS listings for airtime, or check to see if your area is over on Gizmodo's list.

Best of all, episodes will hit the web in HD for your torrenting and streaming pleasures as they are aired, along with PDF guides for the featured projects. I will be checking this out regularly and posting any of the guides I deem worthy here.

via gizmodo

142 Fantastically Funky Modern Furniture Designs



From WebUrbanist, this collection of wild furniture pieces caught my eye. Follow the link to read the whole article and get a look at all these amazing creations. The red paint table and nautilus sink basin above as well as the hand grenade dresser below are absolutely awesome in my opinion.

New Year's Eve

Tomorrow evening, millions of booze-soaked heathens around the world will celebrate the fact that in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII decreed that the Christian world would adopt a new system of dates proposed by the Calabrian doctor Aloysius Lilius. The Gregorian Calendar, as it is now known, resets every year at midnight on January 1st, and for reasons unknown the hours leading up to midnight have become a time for raucous merrymaking and increased DWI enforcement across the land.

Some, however, celebrate the coming of January for other reasons: there are, for example, still churches in the world which celebrate the Gregorian New Year because it marks the day on which Jesus would have been circumcised after his birth on Christmas. Today, the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ would probably not be a real occasion for celebration given the Serious Times we live in, and therefore we look to ever more contemporary reasons to act foolishly.

So, I suppose now we should come to the point: I hate New Year's Eve. I hate the expectation that everyone heaps upon this most ordinary of days. I hate the fact that I can't go to my favorite restaurant because it is booked solid from 6 pm until 10 pm, at which time I will be charged an exorbitant cover for a complimentary glass of champagne and, if I am lucky, lukewarm appetizers. I am not cold, unromantic, or unsentimental; far from it. I have bought in to the Valentine's hype in the past... Mother's Day, Father's Day, Groundhog Day, Earth Day... they all have a place in the pantheon of days that occur only once per year.

In the end, we celebrate these things for the same reason we celebrate all annual events: to mark the passage of time. HOW we mark the occasion of the turning of the wheel from 2008 to 2009 is my issue, not WHY. Perhaps it is the close proximity with Christmas, or the need for those of us in the frozen north to have something to look forward to before three months of bitter, featureless, depressing winter nothingness... ESCAPISM, the real American addiction. I'm fairly certain I'm on to something there, but who cares? The motions must be made anyway. New Year's foolishness is as entrenched in the American way of life as the World Series and birth control.

Your time and your money are yours to spend as you see fit, as are mine. So with that sentiment in mind, I will tell you my plans: I will be sober, happy, and ready to hop in my car in order to bail my drunken, drug-addled friends and acquaintances out of jail for $100 a pop. If you need my contact information for that very reason, I would be delighted to provide it to you. Merry Christmas, and have a safe and happy New Year.


MUCH love, Newrosis

12.19.2008

RIAA Gives Up On Internet Piracy Lawsuits, Nobody Cares

The Recording Industry Association of America has announced that it will be giving up on its controversial strategy to deter internet piracy by suing individual downloaders (some 35,000 of them, including adolescents, single mothers, and dead people) in favor of some other Big Brother type action involving internet service providers.

The move was prompted, according to a RIAA spokesperson, by technological advances which will allow the RIAA to report illegal file sharing to ISPs, who will then presumably do something terrible to the downloader.

Whatever. These record companies need to get on board with the fact that their days of unfettered control over the industry came to an end with the general population's access to broadband internet. I would like to have been in the room when the whole lawsuit strategy was first concocted:

old guy 1: We must do something about this interweb downloading thing.
old guy 2: Just sue them. That's what we've always done in the past. How many of these pirates can there be?
old guy 1: This digital music thing is just a fad. If we use a heavy hand these saps will be back in our pockets buying easily damaged and horribly unwieldy compact disks in no time.
old guy 2: Call the lawyers.

So after more than five years of this strategy, which the RIAA refuses to admit as a failure since, according to their numbers, piracy would have been much worse without the lawsuits, we are back to record companies haggling with ISPs over the best way to stem the tide of 'illegal' file sharing. Fantastic. Until these record companies face up to the fact that there will always be piracy on the internet and adjust their business strategies accordingly, they are simply wasting time and money on futile attempts at enforcement of laws that are in a perpetual grey area.

Newrosis does not advocate stealing, nor do we advocate litigation as a means to keep people from stealing. We are Switzerland. We love pirates and record executives equally. Yarrr. Pirates.

Boston Globe's Annual Big Picture Feature Blows Minds


This is the most insane picture I have ever seen. It looks like some fire monster is emerging from a volcano while hurling lightning bolts at a UFO. From the caption at The Globe's website:

"Lightning bolts appear above and around the Chaiten volcano as seen from Chana, some 30 kms (19 miles) north of the volcano, as it began its first eruption in thousands of years, in southern Chile May 2, 2008. Cases of electrical storms breaking out directly above erupting volcanoes are well documented, although scientists differ on what causes them. Picture taken May 2, 2008."

photo credit: REUTERS/Carlos Gutierrez

12.17.2008

Person of the Year Barack Obama


Was there ever any doubt? Time Magazine will release their Person of the Year issue on December 29th, and the cover will be the iconic and oft-imitated graphic you see above. The print was designed by Shepard Fairey, who is also pictured above and is not a print of Barack Obama. Fairey is also responsible for the Andre the Giant logo used by the Obey streetwear/propaganda line.

Why is it that whenever the word 'responsible' is used to describe someone's contribution to something outside of a job interview, it feels like it has a negative connotation? Something to muse on...

pic via hypebeast

Out of Exile


The Sudanese Civil War and the Darfur conflict have been responsible for the deaths of over 2 million Sudanese civilians and have strewn millions upon millions more across the face of the earth. Many refugees seek asylum through Cairo, Egypt, where there is a shadow world of human suffering, greed, and death.

Out of Exile is a series of interviews with refugees and former captives who escaped the Sudan. Some were accepted as asylum seekers in places like the United States, Australia, and Brazil, while others have been trapped as stateless refugees in places like Cairo. Others are classified as 'internally displaced' persons, and are living in massive refugee camps within the Sudan and neighboring countries.

While certainly everyone at this point knows, at a minimum, that there is a place called Darfur and in that place people are suffering and dying, books like Out of Exile contextualize and bring home the horror of the situation in ways that CNN (beloved though they may be) could never accomplish.

The interviews were edited and compiled by Craig Walzer, and you can buy the book at McSweeney's for $12. John Freeman has written an excellent review for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" Barbie


Just in time for Christmas, Mattel has licensed this adorable, retro-attired Barbie for sale. The release coincides with the 45th anniversary of the child-friendly tale of people being mercilessly attacked by flocks of birds. I deem the Master of Horror would be pleased. Nightmares and an irrational fear of birds are not guaranteed, but should be expected. Creepy plastic birds included.

$40 here


Sno-Baller


Ground warfare is won or lost based on the ability of the troops to resupply (I just made that up but it sounds good, no?). With that in mind, Restoration Hardware gives us the Sno-Baller, which makes cookies. Round cookies made of snow. Anyway... a nice last minute, cheap gift idea for the children of your friends or relations that you don't see very often.

$19 here


via CH

12.15.2008

CubeeCraft


For the bored-at-work set, you can print and assemble your own paper dolls via cubeecraft.com. Then you can play with them, and people will be like, "Hey, there's that guy/girl who plays with dolls." Then people will know who you are, and that promotion can't be far behind, can it? Genius, cubeecraft...genius.

Gerd Arntz Isotype Pictogram Archive



The International System Of TYpographic Picture Education (Isotype) was a visual language system developed in the 1930s by Austrian scientist Otto Neurath in an effort to standardize and contextualize images for use by the (largely) illiterate proletariat. The designer of this language was German-born Gerd Arntz, who used basic shapes with small variations to produce visual models that are meant to convey meaning despite barriers of language and culture.


The prints were carved into linoleum stamps created by Arntz. While there are some 4,000 Isotype symbols, you can check out about 600 of them at the Gerd Arntz web archive. Some of the designs are quaint relics of a different time, but others are still poignant and surprisingly vivid and imaginative.





12.14.2008

Ninja Blowgun and Knife Combo


Have you ever fantasized about shooting someone in the neck with a poisoned dart, then sneaking up behind them and cutting their throat with a 3.5" blade? If you have, you should never tell anyone because it will make people uncomfortable and/or afraid.

This bizarre ninja assasination kit comes with the knife, 2 pieces of rubber tubing which assemble into your blow gun, and 3 darts. No poison, but a fancy pouch for easy concealment, which you will need because there is nothing that you can do with this that won't involve scaring someone badly enough to call the police.

12.12.2008

Room XX by Miguel Barcelo



Miguel Barcelo (there should be an accent over the 'o' but I'm not dealing with finding it right now) is a Spanish artist from Majorca who has produced this significant sculpture on the ceiling of the United Nations' Palace of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. The stalactite forms were created with a plaster mixture and were colored using 35 tons of paint. 35 tons. Of paint.




The most intriguing artistic aspect of this piece is Barcelo's trademark directional painting style: the first layer of paint consisted of every conceivable color spread over every square inch of the sculpture. The second layer was one blue-grey color and was sprayed from only one direction, giving the work a different feel depending on where in the room you're located.





The artist's inspiration for the project (aside from geological forms) is best described by Barcelo himself: "On a day of immense heat in the middle of the Sahel desert, I recall with vivacity the mirage of an image of the world dripping toward the sky." Generally when I have seen things like the world dripping toward the sky, there have been circumstances which would render vivacious remembrances of any kind impossible, so I guess that's what separates artists from the rest of us. Well, that and talent.

Thom Brown


Here are a couple examples of outerwear from Thom Brown, who was recently crowned the GQ Designer of the Year. I like these conservative yet fashion-forward pieces and look forward to someone producing them for people in my tax bracket in the near future.


12.10.2008

The Hundreds x Disney


Streetwear designer The Hundreds has teamed up with Disney to put out some Peter Pan-themed gear. The t-shirts feature the Lost Boys and Tinkerbell, but the hats are where it's at. New Era 59 Fifty fitted caps, one with Peter Pan's signature green and feather, the other Captain Hook's black felt pirate hat.

If you don't live in San Francisco or LA, you're probably never going to see any of this crap because its only being sold in store. If you live in LA, the line debuts tomorrow, Thursday December 11, and I will love you forever if you scoop me that pirate hat.

I already asked a friend of mine, but he is all uppity about Disney trying to gain street cred and says he won't do it. He went to a liberal brainwashing camp out in the desert instead of college though, so I usually just smile and nod when he starts with that crap.

Like I said, available in-store only.

Phuze Design Glass Cocktail Rings


These glass rings by Phuze Design look like bits of hard candy. I like the array of colors and the fact that each ring is unique due to the materials and crafting process. Phuze comes to us out of Mexico City, which if I'm not mistaken is in Mexico. $62 here.


via core77

DOUBT

I typically try to proliferate only that which I know to be glorious. In the present case, I don't necessarily recommend this as a something I know to be good, great or grand, but rather as something I've got a sneaking suspicion will be.

Based upon John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer-Prize winning play, DOUBT is a "story about the quest for truth, the forces of change, and the devastating consequences of blind justice in an age defined by moral conviction" -- or so says the press packet that is neatly packaged into the film's website.

But, hey, if the made-for-Oscar-buzz cast [see: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Viola Davis], transcendent directorial credentials [see: he's the same guy that wrote the play...which won the most glorious prize known to authorial man], and pliable moral fabric [see: this movie is about nuns, priests and their tenuous station in a society embracing the countercultural revolution] aren't enough, listen to what these guys have to say...

EBERT: "One of the best films of the year."

TRAVERS: "Expect fireworks! 'Doubt' will pin you to your seat. The suspense crackles and the arguments cut deeper..."

ENTERTAINMENT: "Buoyed by four phenomenal performances..."

OTHERS: "Call it heresy, but [JPS's] 'Doubt' outshines his Pulitzer-Prize
winning play..." (Karen Durben) & "Brilliant, riveting, even thrilling..."
(FoxNews.com)

...and go see the movie. It opens this Friday (12.12.2008).

12.09.2008

Chinese Attempts to Revolutionize Kissing Exposed, France Unnerved


A Chinese woman in Guangdong Province has temporarily lost all hearing in her left ear due to a furious, passionate, sloppy kiss from her beau, the BBC reports. Apparently, the news was so shocking that Chinese state-run newspaper China Daily ran a story in which it issued the following warning: "While kissing is normally very safe, doctors advise people to proceed with caution."

The doctor who treated the understandably confused 20-something attributed the incident to a loss of mouth pressure, which "pulled the eardrum out and caused the breakdown of the ear." The prognosis? The young woman is expected to regain her hearing within two months.

So I'll be frank: bad things have happened to me while kissing. I have had my lip nearly bitten off, I have been raked by braces, had various other collisions involving tooth and flesh, and not infrequently been slapped for various perceived slights accompanying or occurring prior to said kissing. What we have in the instant case is clearly an attempt at some new form of kiss that would probably be unrecognizable to Americans. Like the flag of Tajikistan, or various international treaties signed in Switzerland dealing with invading other countries and not torturing people.

Developing a new form of kissing is the only explanation my mind can accept, because unless this woman's boyfriend is a shop vac or a leaf blower, kissing as it is presently understood in Western civilization cannot possibly be fucked up badly enough where you blow out someone's eardrum, can it? Until presented with clear evidence to the contrary from reliable sources, I'm going with a Chinese plot to depose the French as the gold kissing standard as retribution for mimes and the Maginot Line.

Consider the Wallace

Recently, a friend of mine pointed me in the direction of this article, noting that it was one of the best articles ever written about depression. While that's not necessarily my idea of fun reading, I dug in nonetheless.

I haven't read Infinite Jest and have only read snippets of David Foster Wallace's (pictured) other work [see: A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again & Consider the Lobster]. Overall, I don't know all that much about DFW other than that McSweeney's [see Internet Essentials - "Words"] seems intent on publishing way too many tributes to his life, that most literary minds of our generation regard him as a a writerly Superman, and that, in my eyes, his prose gleams with brilliant and shiny newness.

All opinions aside, I recommend that you settle into a comfy spot, click this link (if you didn't yet), and prepare to be walloped.

Illinois Governor in Federal Custody on Corruption Charges


I will write more about this later because I have a lot to say, but in brief, the governor of Illinois was arrested today on corruption charges for allegedly attempting to 'sell' President-Elect Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat.

In case you were unaware, the governor, Rod Blagojevich, has the privilege of selecting a replacement for Obama, who was elected during the 2006 election and has (I believe) more than half of his elected Senate term remaining. Federal agents overheard multiple conversations about various schemes to gain financially through political appointments and other equally illegal means. And by overheard, I mean his phones were tapped.

Oh and by the way, he's a Democrat.

via CNN

Netflix Streaming



So Netflix has come out with its instant queue service on both the xbox 360 and TiVo platforms, and the verdict is mixed. On the technical side, if HD versions are available and supported by your gear, that's what you'll get, without the hassle of a $300 Blu-Ray player. The performance is not really an issue--a brief adjustment will occur if your internet connection slows down in the middle of your video--but the content is so-so. There are very few movies worth seeing available for streaming, and by very few I mean Ghostbusters.

On the other hand, they have a grip of TV shows, which is pretty sweet since you can watch an entire season without dealing with disks at all. Also, they have the current season's episodes, so in case you forgot to watch it and forgot to set your DVR, there is now a last failsafe to ensure you will not have to wait for the DVD.

Netflix packages start at $8.99/mo, and you still get DVDs delivered in addition to the instant service.

UPDATE: sony sucks

paranoid self-awareness

I cannot go to school today.

Does Newrosis confuse you yet? Have you yet reached that point where you tune in to our program with certain expectations only to find something that contradicts the very reason you've adjusted your dial?

What?

What's that you say?

You say today is Saturday?

Okay, I'm going out to play.

Listen, Newrosis confuses me and I write here. I tell people to read the blog and they promptly ask me what it's about. Its the inevitable certainty. People in this day and age seem to have an inherent aversion to seeing things for themselves. They must be told what it is they're getting into. Thus, with gracious exasperation, I attempt to articulate our obscure purposes -- and if you've ever attempted to expound upon a complex variable via standard text message, you will feel this pain.

However, as my thumb bounces upon my phone, searching for that perfect summation of Newrosis, I realize that our purposes are decidedly more vexing. Authorially speaking, what we're doing here is actually quite novel.

Authors through time (yes! I'm am equating us to authors...through time) have been stymied by the question: What is your book/work/poem/pamphlet/treatise/etc about? While some have attempted to answer this question with a tidy summation, others have seen little purpose in such pandering, opting instead for the well wrought sentiment: If I could tell you what my book/work/poem/pamphlet/treatise/etc is about, I wouldn't have needed to write the book/work/poem/pamphlet/treatise/etc.

Well, that's how I feel about our endeavors here: If we could tell you what it was all about, we wouldn't have created said blog.

There is, of course, a flip-side to that coin: some, myself included, might argue that those who refuse to summarize their work might have no idea what it's all about in the first place.

Well, I'll cop to that too; to a certain degree, we don't know WTF is going on and we've created this blog to figure that out.

This post was supposed to be about Lincoln Logs by the way. Shit, man.

Regardless, here's a picture of Millard Fillmore to round things out:


WORD.

The Dark Knight on Blu-Ray and DVD Today


If I were to review movies, I would not use stars or a numbered scale to rate them. Instead I would employ an awesomeness factor wherein a movie like... Battlefield Earth would receive a rating of 1986 Plymouth Voyager, whereas a movie like The Dark Knight would get... oh I don't know... a Saturn V Rocket or a Bugatti Veyron. Maybe a Jessica Alba if she wasn't married with a kid now.

At any rate, this is my favorite movie this year due in large part to Heath Ledger being the most awesome Joker in the history of the storied franchise; high praise considering some of the other names who have played the role.

12.08.2008

Secret Mark Throwing Star Magnets



These Throwing Star Magnets will really impress your friends when they're stuck to the fridge. Then your friends will realize they are just magnets, and the illusion will be ruined. Maybe if you tell your friends that the throwing stars are covered in poison, they will never realize they are actually magnets because they will be afraid to touch them. Then those jerks will start giving you the respect a ninja deserves. $19 here.

via core77

The Natural Year Phone Looks Like a Waste of a Bag



The Natural Year Phone was designed by Je-Hyun Kim as a green alternative to the biennial phone swap that most Americans engage in when their contract runs out. The brick weed ("hay," according to the designer) will break down over time, leaving only the keypad and screen, which will be recyclable. The theory is that this phone will decompose in a fraction of the time it would take for the plastic and transistors and candy and whatever else is in that crackberry to return to dust. No word on how the phone will be powered, but I suspect good vibes and patchouli are involved.

12.07.2008

The Electric Paper Airplane Launcher

Now, gizmodo seems to think that this contraption is for those too lazy to throw their own paper airplanes. I disagree. I submit to you that what the Electric Paper Airplane Launcher really does is allow for more advanced aerodynamic testing of paper airplane design by eliminating the potential for human error in the delivery. By delivering a flawless, 30 MPH launch, this revolutionary machine creates the potential for some intrepid adolescent or co-worker to pierce the cornea of his foe from distances once thought to be in the realm of sheer fantasy.

$18 at Urban Outfitters, AA battery required. Should probably also include the names of local personal injury defense attorneys.


12.06.2008

Porsche Museum


This beautiful, modern, VERY German-looking building is in Stuttgart and will house the Porsche Museum upon its completion. The building is designed by Delugan Meissl Architects of Vienna. The museum will have 5,600 sq. m of exhibition space (no I will not calculate it in square footage) to showcase 80 cars from the famous manufacturer. In addition to a rotating array of car-related exhibits the museum will house workshops, a gift shop, the Porsche archive, and a restaurant and café. Happy German fun for the whole family.




12.05.2008

Kahtoola Microspikes


So I'm going to go ahead and preface this by saying that if you live on or near Hennepin Ave. and 26th St. South in Minneapolis, you should not buy these. If you do, it will really infringe on the enjoyment I get from my Saturday morning winter passtime of watching people fall and drop things.

For everyone else, these lightweight 3/8" spikes will strap on to your sneakers or loafers and dramatically increase your odds of not falling in slippery winter conditions and looking like a jerk. $59 at the Kahtoola online store.

See, then judge, the Thunder

So we're all about innovation and espousing a unique brand of thinking -- possibly living -- here at Newrosis. The very nature of said espousal usually leads us beyond the boundaries within which daily life is lived. Fringe elements. Unknown goodness existing somewhere beyond where we're used to finding it. It's not that the stuff we talk about is wholly alternative or revolutionary (Nerf, Puma, and OJ Simpson are as much a part of the pop culture lexicon as Silly Putty and Betty Boop), but rather that the way we talk about these things might shine a new light upon them -- or possibly point out how they've shown a new light upon themselves.

With that said, sometimes our brand of goodness comes in the form of the biggest summer blockbuster that nobody has seen. Don't get us wrong; we like Lars and the Real Girl and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly as much as the next guys, but we're also not ashamed to admit when a product of pop culture nips perfection in the ass and saves some in it's lunch pail for later.

Bearing all that in mind, we recommend that you immediately stop reading this blog and begin watching TROPIC THUNDER...thrice!

If you've left to watch the movie, good. If not, then I fear we have some further convincing to do. However, if the very mention of something popular makes you want to leave this blog, never to return, then go and please don't return. Good riddance. We spit in your general direction. Say hi to Jim Jarmusch for us.

If you're still here and looking for a movie review before you make your decision, then you're SOL too, because we're not in that game. What we are doing is giving you permission to check-it-out and laugh until you fart. Seriously. You haven't laughed hard enough at Tropic Thunder until you've farted. That is how funny the movie is. While the first time through is amazing -- those who deal in cheap cliches might say "gut-busting" -- it's the second and third times that inspire the gastronomic anomaly of the laughing-fart combination. Because of this, you should probably make sure you don't watch the movie in mixed company.

If you need further convincing (not to mention proof of why RDjr should probably be considered for an Oscar...and the very reason he won't be) then look closely at this poster.



Sophomoric. Juvenile. Rakish. Thoroughly unlike the movie.

So just see it already. Until then, we'll see you in our eyes-closed-movies.

Prison Orange Juice Just Got Really Weird

This is my first Newrosis post. Accordingly, it gives me anxiety...Mainly because four readers is three more than my other blog.

Anyway, so I'm blogging from my couch while watching TV, which usually causes me to blog not at all. But today the TV actually gave me slight inspiration...In the form of Orenthal James Simpson. Yep. For those of you sitting at work who haven't paid mind to our recommendations of CNN.com and/or ESPN.com as Internet essentials -- AKA sites that should always be open on your work computer -- The Juice had his armed robbery/kidnapping sentencing hearing today. I wasn't intending to watch it, but after Ellen and The Price is Right, I turned to CNN not so much for the news as to avoid soap operas...Plus, that Don Lemmon, is just so cute, isn't he?

So, yeah, CNN is on, more or less in the background, and for the first time this week they cut away from the newscast to something other than the automaker bailout hearings. Just like that, we're in Vegas watching the judge (this is live mind you) lecturing OJ Simpson about just how wrong it was to storm into a room with a gun and spout some naughty language. Really? You can't do that even if you're OJ?

I was immediately engaged. The judge, Jackie Glass (doesn't OJ always get the best names assigned to his cases?) was basically scolding him...It was some serious mom-laying-into-child-type verbal fury; very demeaning stuff. Anyway, as she berates OJ--basically for being an idiot--the camera is panning around the court room and I swear everyone but Kato Kaelin is there. The Goldmans, his kids, a big chunk of the cast from 1994. Just surreal. And then there's OJ, at the front, just glazed over and aloof. It was compelling television in the same low-brow, voyeuristic way that Cops is compelling television.

Well, after far too long Judge Jackie Glass gets to the point and reads the supremely multifaceted sentence, which, when added-up, amounts to 15 years in prison...At least 9 of which would be served. Whopping, right? OJ finally going to prison?

I duly note that OJ has finally gotten what he deserves...kinda. I thus proceed to inform one or two people of the outcome and then I prepare to find an rerun of Law and Order or NCIS, ready to let OJ drift into the recesses of my brain where he belongs. Well, CNN doesn't give me the chance. Before I can settle on a new program, they cut to OJ's courtroom apology taped earlier in the afternoon (embedded below). At first I am tempted to ignore it, but soon I can't. There he is, not yet knowing his fate, spilling his guts. The Goldmans are in the background jeering, The Juice's daughter is there looking genuinely despondent, and the Juice is pleading with the judge. Before long I realize something horrendous, something that just about knocks me off the couch...

Sitting there, sipping my coffee, watching Simpson squirm, I realize that I actually, in some weird way feel sorry for him: I am finding the whole thing to be very sad. Of course, as I'm watching his apology, I'm not thinking about it like that, but shit man, after a while, even though I already know his sentence, I am in some strange way hoping OJ will be cleared. YES. I DO NOT BLAME YOU IF YOU STOP READING NOW.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's partially because I'm a sucker for tears -- and he was definitely battling them -- but I think this desire for a free OJ came from somewhere far more remote: in a nasty kinda way it stems, I reckon, from The Naked Gun. It occurs to me, watching him beg for his life, that whenever I see OJ, I can't help but think of Detective Nordberg and, from there, OJ's entire existence pre-1994. It was as if, as I watched today, I didn't feel sorry for the OJ who was standing there, but for Nordberg and, subsequently, for the kid that set almost every tangible college football rushing record and rushed for over 2,000 yards in a 14-game NFL season. As I watched OJ apologize, I felt sorry for his earlier self and everybody, including me, who liked that guy.

I wonder which guy his fellow inmates will see? Who knows, maybe it'll be like The Longest Yard and he'll beat the guards in football and all will be forgiven. Then again, I've seen Sleepers too. All I know is, from now on the OJ in prison won't be quite so palatable.