Desipio Message Board

IndyCar driver Dan Wheldon, dead at 33.

I didn't watch this. But I did notice it in the listings earlier and recalled the ads for it running during MNF last night.

A Tim Allen sitcom about modern manliness?

This has "two-episode run" written all over it.

Well, that was just about the shittiest way to play a decent half of football that I can recall.

Judging by the utterly dismal discussion in the shoutbox this afternoon, the financial markets are fixing to burn themselves right to the ground all over again.

And now I'm reading that scientists have observed massive particles traveling faster than the speed of light, potentially upending everything we thought we knew about EVERYTHING.

So I figure the only rational course of action is to sell everything I own, buy up as many goats and as much bubble wrap as I can get my hands on, and move to a cave somewhere before the motorcycle marauders and time-traveling robots get here to murder us all in our sleep.

Anyone who wants to join me can fuck off and find their own damn caves.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/fx-picks-up-animated-series-from-its-always-sunny,61829/

QuoteFX has confirmed via press release a 13-episode order for Unsupervised, the animated comedy from It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia's David Hornsby, Scott Marder, and Rob Rosell that was first rumored back in March, when we were young. As previously reported, the show follows two 15-year-old boys with absentee parents left to muddle their way through teenage life without any guidance—and as we noted then, it differs from Beavis And Butt-head in that these boys are both optimists who always try to do the right thing, rather than trying to set those sorts of people on fire.

Instead, most of the horrible behavior will be left to the people they encounter, some of whom will be drawn from a voice cast that includes Justin Long, Kristen Bell, Romany Malco, Fred Armisen, Kaitlin Olson, and Alexa Vega. Unsupervised is scheduled to premiere in January alongside Archer, whose Adam Reed and Matt Thompson will also handle this show's animation. No word on why the show scrapped its original title Townies, unless it was to avoid giving the impression that it was a cartoon about college students slumming it by sleeping with high-school dropouts who work at the local factory—though with this team behind it, we'd probably watch that too.

First Boogaard and Rypien, now Wade Belak...

http://www.torontosun.com/2011/08/31/ex-leafs-enforcer-belak-found-dead

QuoteTORONTO - Former Toronto Maple Leafs winger-defenceman and enforcer Wade Belak was found dead in his downtown Toronto condo Wednesday, sources say.

He is the latest in a line of several NHL pugilists who died over the past decade from unusual circumstances including suicide, alcohol and drug abuse.

Belak killed himself, according to sources.

Toronto Police refused comment after being called to the condo at 1 King St. W., where a man's body was found.

Belak, 35, who was just signed on for the popular Battle of the Blades reality TV show, was found dead around 1:33 p.m., the source said.

He hanged himself, according to a source.

Quite the off-season.

Ridley Scott to direct sequel (or prequel) to Blade Runner.

Lucian Freud, dead at 88.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/22/arts/lucian-freud-adept-portraiture-artist-dies-at-88.html

ET's back. And he's not tolerating any bullshit.

Meh. It's decent and not a total waste of your time. If you see it, do make sure you stick around through the end credits.

Premiers tonight. And tomorrow night.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/jon-benjamin,57471/

QuoteAVC: After the last time we spoke, you mentioned after the interview that the show shifted from how it was originally conceived. How so?

JB: It started when we made the pilot. It's not entirely different, but we built on what we did in the pilot and changed it from there. When it got ordered to a series, we didn't completely change it, but we took the elements of the pilot and expanded on them. We added the whole story element—how the story breaks down, or how I become part of the fake story that I'm doing—in some fashion. We expanded on that part without telling Comedy Central, who were, um, not unpleasantly surprised by that. Initially, [the first episode] wasn't the pilot. It was a different show: a couple street pieces and a couple interviews, and that was it. It never went anywhere else.

AVC: What was the attraction to add the secondary story, the show-within-a-show element?

JB: Well, we wanted to fuck over Comedy Central. No, no, we started writing and realized that if we did 10 of those episodes, it would become boring for us. At least it was for me. Leo Allen, who I worked with and wrote the show with—we started writing a bunch of interview sketches in the room, and after a week we were like, "Wow. We wrote a lot of these." It felt like the show wouldn't be as exciting to us if we did 10 of those. Basically, we had decided to write the last episode first, where we would completely go away from the formula of the first nine—we decided, "Let's write that one first so we have it out of the way and can return to writing what we're supposed to write," figuring that Comedy Central won't care by episode 10 that we're writing something totally different. So we did that, and because we enjoyed it, we did more of that. It's like doing cocaine. Once you do it once, you're like, "Wow that's enjoyable, let's do it again!" But it's not for everybody. Writing. Not cocaine. Cocaine is for everybody.

Leonard B Stern, TV writer and co-creator of Mad Libs...

http://www.avclub.com/articles/rip-leonard-b-stern-writer-for-the-honeymooners-an,57314/

Derek Boogaard, KOed at 28.

These salary cap dodges are really getting out of hand.

A win for the workers!

http://barbara.guanabee.com/2011/05/brazilian-woman-wins-right-masturbate-work/

QuoteBrazilian Woman Wins Right To Masturbate At Work

Ana Catarian Bezerra is a 36-year-old Brazilian woman who suffers from a chemical imbalance that triggers severe anxiety and hypersexuality. Ana, an accountant by day, began to have problems at work because the only way to relieve said anxiety is by masturbating. A lot. Now, after winning a court battle and seeking professional medical help, Ana is allowed to masturbate and watch porn — using her work's computer, no less — legally.

Ana wasn't always like this, she was worse:

Quote"I got so bad I would to masturbate up to forty seven-times a day. That's when I asked for help, I knew it wasn't normal."

Carlos Howert, Ana's doctor, prescribes Ana with a "cocktail" (read: an entire medicine cabinet's worth) of tranquillizers. We're not sure how that "cocktail" doesn't knock Ana out (half a Claritin feels like an elephant tranquillizer to us), but thanks to Dr. Howert's concoction, Ana only has to masturbate around eighteen-times a day.

http://www.csnchicago.com/03/26/11/Bears-should-be-proud-of-their-books/landing_moon_v3.html?blockID=491256&feedID=626

QuoteBears President Ted Phillips has aligned the Bears with the Dallas Cowboys (and the already publicly owned Green Bay Packers, plus the Denver Broncos potentially) as teams open to the idea of open books, something demanded by the players' side as long as owners are asking for a $1 billion giveback to help teams with operating expenses.

"If the league feels to get a deal done, they need to release [financials], we're on board," Phillips told the Chicago Sun-Times. "I'm actually proud of how we operate our club. We think we do a good job, revenue-wise and expense-wise."

Open financial records? I think Chuck just creamed his Sunday slacks.

I seem to recall there being a thread for this book at one point (which must have gotten Dolan'd out of existance).

I bring it up because it is this book's author, William Cronon, whose university email records are now, in a might blow against Big Government, the subject of an open records request made by one of the Governor's staffers (and a former deputy campaign manager) on behalf of the Wisconsin GOP.

At any rate, it's supposed to be a great book.

http://www.ruralhistory.net/RHreading/Cronon.html
http://www.urbanoasis.org/node/236

A new show I found Comedy Central running a "sneak preview" of when I was flipping around after Lights Out last night.

It was pretty brilliant.

http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/workaholics/index.jhtml
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1610527/

Orson Welles' latest...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/jan/23/orson-welles-last-film-release

Feels like a keeper.

Or perhaps the Obama Body Count?

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20110103/NEWS01/101030329

QuoteNewark police have identified the body discovered on New Year's Eve at the Cherry Island Landfill in Wilmington as 66-year-old John P. Wheeler III of New Castle.

Wheeler, a U.S. Army veteran of the Vietnam War who lived part time in Old New Castle, was a defense consultant in Washington, D.C., and had a long career in public service, working in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. Wheeler was past chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, which built the memorial on the National Mall in Washington.

His death has been ruled a homicide.

...

In 2009, Wheeler and Klyce sued to stop construction of a new home across the street, contending it would block their view. After a long battle, New Castle's historic commission granted Frank and Regina Marini permission to build a two-and-a-half story home on the lot.

Though the home is under construction, Wheeler and Klyce have ongoing litigation against the Marinis in Delaware Chancery Court, said attorney John Tracey, who is representing the Marinis.

On Tuesday, firefighters discovered a smoke bomb that had been thrown inside the Marinis' home. The state fire marshal is investigating the incident, but officials haven't linked the two events.