From CNN.com.  Remember that girl who played Winnie on the Wonder Years?  Her name is Danica McKellar, and she wants to tell you something:  “Smart is cool.”  Said McKellar, “When girls see the antics of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, they think that being fun and glamorous also means being dumb and irresponsible…”

I guess Winnie, but you’ve been slutting it up yourself recently in Stuff, no?  I mean, sure, you’re a Mathematician, but really, that centerfold is furthering your acting career more than women’s rights.

And for the record, how do we know you haven’t been coked out with fire crotch ablaze?  We don’t know, because unlike Lohan, the media doesn’t care about 32 year old Winnie.

McKellar’s upcoming book, Match Doesn’t Suck, is designed to encourage to get girls into math.  I wonder if it tells them how to make a career out of math?  I mean, assuming you’re not living off Wonder Years royalties.

Is Lohan over?  Her latest movie “I Know Who Killed Me” got a 7% on rottentomatoes, and generated only $3.4 million this weekend - ranking 9th, behind Live Free or Die Hard, which has been out for over a month.

You’d think that Lohan’s latest arrest would have created more interest in the movie - actually it seems like the arrest was perfectly timed to create interest.

And the movie has something for everyone…Lohan strips, gets tortured, and plays a high school student.  Really, what’s not to like?

Still, Lohan has never won props for her acting ability, and “I know…” certainly won’t raise her stock as a headliner.  Her clashes with Georgia Rule coworkers also makes her a risky hire for any movie role - who wants to deal with a lazy, unreliable bitch who will steal headlines with her drunken rampages.

She hasn’t transitioned from cute (maybe too cute) prepubescent girl to credible adult actress like Natalie Portman.  She doesn’t have a fall-back career like Mandy Moore.

If anything, Lohan seems to be suffering from the Jennifer Love Hewitt effect.  She’s made it far with her looks, even though she has no acting ability whatsoever.  But once the public realizes that she’ll never get nude on screen…or rather, they can see her nude online, but not in the movies, her stock will crash.

And that’s going to happen…abbbooouuuuuttttt…..now.

First of all, she’s not that hot.  While there are some pictures of her that are undeniably, uh, mesmerizing…these candids will only take her so far.  There are a million more hot teen idols whose stock is building, and each MTV fake reality show spits out a few more.  It’s only a matter of time until these teen start drinking and doing coke, stealing headlines from Lohan.

After than, what does she have left?

Well, what did Britney have?  Babies.  Lots of them.

Yep, that’s the next logical step.  After all, how else can a star widely ridiculed for drug and alcohol use repair her image?  It’s a problem for Lohan, because if she’s being good, she’s not getting publicity points.  And with her movie career in the state that it’s currently in, publicity points are all she has.

Spoiler Alert.

I just finished the third season of Lost, and overall it was pretty impressive.  I think the show lost a lot of viewers in season 2 because it just presented question after question, while giving very few answers.  Season 3 does pose its share of questions as well, particularly in the season finale…but you also get to see a lot of the ‘others,’ which was probably the most nagging part of season 2.

The first part of the season is focused on Jack, Sawyer and Kate kidnapped and held captive in the other’s camp.  Interestingly, they used Paradise Park for these scenes.  No, not the treetops buffet - the old, concrete, overgrown bird cage areas.  It actually works pretty well, since Paradise Park is looking very prison-like after being out of commission for over a decade.

This site actually gives a pretty thorough overview of Lost locations on the island.  They include St. Andrews Priory, Popeye’s chicken, the YWCA, chinatown, and Time Market Liliha.  Camp Erdman also makes an appearance as the Other’s home camp.

Season 3 finally exposes the others - showing two of their camps.  Their submarine is also exposed, but destroyed by Locke.  You also learn more about the origin of the others.  Ben used to be part of the Dharma initiative, but betrayed his people, resulting in the death of about 40 Dharma members.  Subsequently, he became the leader of the others.

The season ends with the castaways coming close to being rescued.  More interestingly, you see Jack struggling with depression, a beard, and nearly committing suicide.  At first, you think these scenes are flashbacks - just like the millions of other flashbacks during the series.  But the big twist is that these are flashforwards - showing Jack and Kate off the island.  One thing though, in these flashforwards, Jack doesn’t like being off the island, and wants to go back.

Oooohhh, it’s a cliff hanger.

I think Season 3 did a good job of righting the Lost ship.  Season one was easy for the show - they had lots of material with the characters getting situated on the island while dealing with all the weird shit going on.  Season two was a bit of a sophomore slump.  There was too much going on, and instead of answering these questions, the show just seemed to add more to thicken the plot.  It was a lame tactic.

But in season three, you learn about the others, learn that they are vulnerable, and at least think that the crash survivors are going to get rescued.  It’ll be hard to maintain this momentum for season 4, considering that there are not longer many enemies for the crash survivors…but the season finale does hint that there are a lot more mysteries that are going to be presented in coming episodes.

One thing though, Jack is turning out to be somewhat of a bitch.  He’s starting to get very secretive and pig-headed, and is getting all hung up on Kate f’ing sawyer.  Plus, the flashforwards to when they are off the island make you want him to either kill himself quickly, or stop bitching about it.

With the most recent news regarding Lindsay Lohan it begs the question; Is her career over?  Her acting career was a little tenuous after doing so many family movies.  This recent bout with substance abuse problems may bring that money train to an end.  One thing that is particularly disturbing is that she went into the rehab program, faked the funk, came out and made a big show about wearing a monitoring device, then went out and partied like she was smarter than everyone.  So what’s the next move?  My guess is that her roles are going to start getting darker and she’s going to play “the hot damaged girl” roles similar to how Robert Downey Jr. seems to play the burnt out cops.  Does anyone else have an opinion?

Allow me to stand on my soapbox for a second.  One thing that particularly upsets me when shopping at grocery stores or drugstores are the use of customer loyalty cards.  I’m so fucking sick of being asked if I have my Safeway/albertsons/CVS card in hand when I’m shopping.  What is the purpose of this other than to lock you into shopping only at one store.  If you want to do me a favor, just keep your prices low all the time and save me the charade of raising prices then lowering them when I present your particular card.  I know I’m not really saving $5 on that box of Triscuits (don’t even get me started on how fucking weird is the name Triscuit, its the combination of  biscuit and what? Tris?  what the fuck is that!) I know that Albertson’s isn’t charging $7 for a box.

Seriously! who has the time to collect these fucking cards and carry them 24/7 just on the off chance of stopping somewhere to purchase something.  Should I keep them in an baseball card holders and file them in three ring binders?  Don’t even get me started on the follow up question when I explain I don’t have the card on me.   “What’s your phone number?”  Like its that simple, Hmm.  Let me think, which number did I sign-up the card under?  Could it be the home phone number for one of the 8 different places I’ve lived at in the past 8 years, or maybe the number for my cell phone, or work blackberry, or work phone number, or grand central number, or one of the two burner numbers I’ve used when my cell phone wasn’t working.  Hold on, let me just manually try each of these 14 numbers (if I can remember them) just to get 1.50 off that laundry detergent.

Cut the bullshit already.

Last night Barry Bonds homered in the first inning to bring himself one homer away from Hank Aaron’s all time record.  He was walked at every appearance for the rest of the night.

The Giants are at home, playing today and Sunday.  Then they’ll be on a week-long road trip to southern california, before returning back home.

I’m hoping that Barry breaks Aaron’s record at home, where fans will actually appreciate it…and, well, be happy for him.  He’s had a pretty hard time when on the road…and sure, they’re the whole ‘roids thing, but he should at least get some love for his record, no?

In any case, Marlins at Giants, tonight, 6PM pst.

Anyone other than Japa looking to take the other side of a bet on how long it takes before Japadamus purchases The Washlet?  I know he’s going to be all over it.

  Yesterday Mike Vick pleaded ‘not guilty’ to dogfighting charges in a Virginia court.  He faces up to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines.

Outside, hundreds of protestors (both humans and dogs) lined the street.  According to Yahoo! Sports writer Dan Wetzel, “almost all of the people supporting Vick or holding signs pleading for “due process” and “innocence until proven guilty” were African American.  On the other side was an emotional, angry, passionate anti-Vick group that was overwhelmingly white.”  From the pictures, it seems the lines are more accurately drawn among gender - I saw only a few guys for the peta side - but that’s probably typical.

 In any case, I’ll say one thing about animal rights activists…they have super nice signs.  I mean, look at these things, well designed, some with large color graphics of hurt dogs.  These guys are definitely well funded.  Bad news for Obama and Clinton however, those are donations being directed away from your campaign.

Last night I went to see the 2007 350z Nismo edition.  Basically it’s a Z with Nismo rims, bracing and shocks…and a ridiculous rice rocket nismo body kit.  It’s a limited edition release, and they’re really, really hard to find.  The dealer I went to had only one in, and it was parked in the middle of the showroom floor and plastered with ‘don’t touch’ signs.  As far as I know, this is the only one in the bay area.

So I went to take a look.  I’m kinda in the market for a car and I would jump on a good deal, but the Z seemed way out of my price range.

In any case, once I started talking to the sales guy, he said I wouldn’t even be able to test drive the car until we came close to an agreement - it only had 5 miles on it, and he wanted to keep it like that.

His first quote, $750 over 60 months, including my $22,000 trade in (-$13k financing) and $8,000 in cash.  That represents a $10,000 premium above sticker - supposedly because it’s so rare.

This was his moon shot, I guess.  Taking this deal would literally mean you’re giving away around $10k.

The sales guy brought the quote all nicely typed out in italics on a piece of paper with the nissan logo.  Then he broke out the 4 square to narrow down a ‘range.’

This is the thing though, the sales guy always asks you for your price range, because he will push up against that range as much as possible to milk you as much as possible.  It’s such a scam - I mean, what product is ever like that - even houses come with relatively structured payments.  Once he knows your range, you’ve showed your hand in a sense.  He makes it seem like he’s doing you a favor to bring the car within your price range, but all it does is enable him to take a larger cut.

In any case, I asked him to come back with some real figures, and we went back and forth for hours.  He was trying to f me two ways, once with the value of my trade in and a second time with the price of the car itself.  They quoted a low value for my trade in, and when I made a fuss about that they bumped up the trade in value, but added more on the other end.

After a couple hours, I was in the pit taking to the sales manager, who was actually a kid that looked 20 years old wearing a white NY yankees cap tilted to the side of his head and a big white t-shirt like jay-z.  No kidding.

So by this time, the sales guy is out of the loop, and we’re on the computer inputting numbers.  It’s down to a payment of $560 per month over 72 months, $0 down and $32,000 for my trade in.  Compare this to the original offer of $750 over 60 months with $8k down and you can see how much the initial quote was an effort to f me anally.

So far, I was solidly in the drivers seat, driving the numbers down, knowing that no matter what the car was still out of my price range.  I just wanted to see it, for god’s sake.

And then the sales manager took the keys, stepped in, gunned the engine in the showroom while the salesmen opened the big glass doors to the parking lot.  And I went for a ride.

The Z is low to the ground, and unlike the G35 is stiff.  You feel absolutely in control in every turn, and can feel the road cleanly.  That’s both a blessing and a curse - great for a fun, high powered drive, but impractical and a bit tiring for everyday use.

By this time though, it was past 10 and the roads near the dealership were abandoned.  And the car felt great.  It has 306 horsepower, but the car itself is small.  I don’t know a lot about cars, but I know this one had power beyond anything I had driven before.  I don’t know the official 0 to 60, but it felt like I got to 80mph in a couple seconds flat.

And so I balk.

Suddenly, the numbers that will force me into a life of top ramen 7 days a week seem reasonable.  So what, I’ll have to move to a dump and barely be able to pay for gas…but I’ll have the car, right?

So I give TJFKAK a call, and explain the details.  One thing about TJFKAK, she’s not cheap (except with PayPal fees), she’ll spend some money on some tech stuff, like a roomba, for example.

But she talked me out of it.  Thankfully.  And while I was talking to her, the remaining nissan sales people were watching me intently, knowing what was coming.  After all, how could someone who has not seen the car or driven it justify such an expense?  And that was the best part, she was informed of only the risks, and not the reward…and was therefore more rational.

So I walked.  And it was hard hard hard.  The pit boss with the yankees cap said if I went home to think about it he would add $4k back to the price of the car.  The salesmen crowded around me to tell me what a mistake I was making.  Pathetic.

But in any case, I feel like I learned a lot about negotiating tactics from this experience.  For one, give as little information as possible - the car is a piece of inventory that has a fixed cost - the dealer should be able to give numbers without committing you to anything.  They tried the line, “so if I can get you in such and such range, will you guarantee that we have a deal?” while sticking out a hand to shake.  Tell them to quote a price, and say your range is open.  And if they push back, call their bluff.

Another thing, they’ll always try to say something about your trade in that will reduce it’s value.  Scratches, blotches, a poor market.  It’s mostly BS - they can fix any scratches or dings for a fraction of what it would cost you to fix it, and unless your car has some major damage, there will always be a market for it.

And know that when they start off, they’re quoting you a ridiculous price - don’t even bother looking or considering it.  Send the sales guy straight back to the pit - he knows he’s coming at you with BS.

One thing though, I also recently test drove the new 2008 Scion XB, and with Scion, you have zero wiggle room.  You can get, maybe, a few hundred more on your trade in, but that’s it.  Since the Z was a higher value car, however, there was a lot more room for negotiation.

Anyway, fun experience.  The car was incredible.  I’m still thinking about it as I write.  And thanks to the reason and steady hand of TJFKAK.  She may think people break into her car to stash weed under the seat, but she does know a bum deal when she sees it.

From Gizmodo.  The nation that coined the term ‘daikon legs’ has done it again.  Pizza Hut in Japan has released the Double Roll pie, a pizza that features bacon wrapped sausages in the crust, mini hamburger patties, pepperoni and lots and lots of cheese.  At 646 calories per slice, the double roll seems like a heart attack in the making.

From Consumerist.  Another great effort from Improv Everywhere.  Is it me of could the Wendy’s employees not give any less of a fuck about the protestors?  At the end even Cuba Gooding Jr. joins the protest.

The last couple of days have been a roller coaster for Apple.  The company opened on Monday at $143, but closed tuesday down nearly $9 to $134.89.

After reporting earnings this afternoon, however, Apple is back up…big time, rising nearly $13 in after hours trading to $150 - a record high for the company.

The jump was fueled by better than expected earnings and the sales of 270,000 iPhones during the first two days of release.   Oddly, AT&T reported yesterday that iPhone activations totaled only 146,000 iPhones during the first two days of release.

Why the discrepancy?  I don’t see 124,000 iPhones on ebay (although there are quite a few).  Maybe users just waited a day to activate their phones, or were slowed by AT&T’s supposedly unreliable activation service.

It doesn’t really matter…no matter how you slice it, all in all, a great day for Apple.

By what standards should we judge our treatment of animals?  State law, federal law, god’s law?  Does it matter if we’re in rural Virginia, New York, Hawaii or Indonesia?

The answers to all of these are yes, and therein lies the problem.  Standards for the treatment of animals vary widely among different races, cultures and upbringings.  A rural, or in this case, inner-city upbringing seems to create a lower standard for ‘ethical’ treatment.

JakGrabbit would never fight dogs, and for that matter, neither would I.  I believe it is cruel and inhumane…but that’s just because I was raised that way.  Being raised in a relatively well-off neighborhood gives you the luxury of respecting animals, because, ironically, for us they are entertainment - they do not provide labor or sustenance.

I think it’s OK to purchase a dog like the animal is an object, and I think it’s fine to enslave said dog into a life of doing stupid tricks for my entertainment.  And if some shoes are eaten, then maybe the dog will get a slap or two.

But I also realize that for some people, a dog is literally a piece of meat.  For some people, animals do not have feelings and can be killed for sport or entertainment - even if they are cute.  And while I would not do that personally, I realize that this is simply a byproduct of our background.  It would be unfair to impose my upper-middle class, TV-dinner from Star Market background, on someone from, say, a small rural town in Virginia.

Yes, we would hope that Vick’s wealth has produced a stronger sense of decency.  But I think we should also understand that people are raised to view animals in a certain light - and if you’re raised to see animals as a utility, then a $50 million football contract won’t change that.

Frankly, we’re lucky if we can successfully create standards for the treatment of human beings.

And that’s where we really need to think about the Vick case.  I do think Vick should go through whatever legal proceedings are applicable to this case - I’ve never wavered on this.  But what is really going to matter here is the, sigh…court of public opinion.

The NFL is a public organization that is highly aware of public opinion.  We can simply disregard Vick as an asshat piece of shit, because he is a millionaire and pro football player.  Or we can try to understand where he’s coming from.

Look, I’m not one to quickly give second chances, but millions in fantasy football dollars are at stake here.  If Vick’s career is ended on this, be clear, it is ended because people are not willing to understand that animals are treated differently by people of different backgrounds.  They are making this into a personal matter, portraying Vick as someone who is evil, when really, it’s just a difference in viewpoints.

Sure, there should be a universal, objective standard as to how we treat dogs, cats, bunnies, hamsters, spiders, roaches and herpes.  But right now, there is not.  And until that point, we should hold off judging others by our personal standards, and instead realize that our viewpoints are not universal, may not be ‘objectively’ correct, and may be subject to the bias of wealth.

From Gizmodo.  This is a pretty amazing video of a WWII T-6G plane making an emergency landing on a Wisconsin highway, while on its way to an airshow. 

No one was injured, although the plane’s wing was damaged as it clipped some signs.

I was a vegetarian for ten years.

There.  I said it. 

But I got over it.  I eat meat now.  I love meat (mostly, I still draw the line at veal).  I also love leather.  While I don’t hunt, I’ve got no problem with it.  I actually respect skilled hunters and fishermen.  They’re the best environmentalists I’ve ever met.  Real environmentalists; not pot-smoking white kids with dreadlocks.  God, I hate hippies. 

That being said, I have to explain also that I hold more contempt and burning hatred for PETA than pretty much any other organization out there.  Their hypocracy and idiocy is astounding.  One simple, and quick example of which, is that their Senior Vice-President, MaryBeth Sweetland, the second in command of an organization that advocates not just pure veganism, but also the abolition of zoos, aquariums, and even seeing-eye dogs, is an insulin dependant diabetic.

That’s right.  She uses a producted developed by animal testing and still made directly from animal biological byproducts.  Cute little bunnies have to die so she can eat her doughnuts.  Does she see anything wrong with this?  No.  She says, “I’m not going to take the chance of killing myself by not taking insulin. I don’t see myself as a hypocrite. I need my life to fight for the rights of animals.”  That’s right.  SHE’S not going to die.  Your loved ones who need that research or medicine?  Them dying is okay.

I fucking hate PETA.  I hate them SOOOOO much.  Campaigning for your cause by comparing cattle slaughterhouses to the Nazi Deathcamps?  By showing side by side images from the two above mentioned locales?  I see a big difference, PETA.  One is a pile of dead HUMANS!

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way:

Michael Vick is a piece of shit. 

It’s one thing if you are unemployed in Waianae and chicken fighting is your only source of income (which, for you Punahou grads, you realize is typically about $300,000 for the house per major tournament).  Michael Vick is already a millionaire.  He’s not doing it for the money.

And he’s not from a foreign culture that has some ancient tradition of dog-fighting as a means of connecting with your gods or ancestors, or where your pit-bull’s fighting strength is the only means for the women of your village to measure your virility.  He’s a pro football player.  He has a mansion.  He has at least two sports cars.  When he even thinks about possibly getting an erection, there is a long line of beautiful women waiting right there to pounce on it.  He’s not fighting dogs because of the nobility of the sport.

He’s fighting dogs because he’s a bloodthirsy asshat who revels in watching two animals rip each other to shreds.  At least in a cock fight, the birds attack each other because that’s what they do.  They are cocks afterall.  Dogs fight because they’ve been abused, tortured and to please their owner. 

I’m truely disturbed by Mr. Adamus’s assertion that Michael Vick “did not hurt anyone.”

Ahem:

Having been involved in the rehabilitation of fighting dogs, let me tell you, there are few things that make you hate humans more.  I can only think of one other job; child protective services worker. 

You are absolutely right.  Vick did not rape or kill anybody.  That’s true.  That’s a far worse crime.  He didn’t drive drunk.  Also true, but I’ve lived in Hawaii for too long to convince me that most of you think THAT’s a mortal sin.  Unless having a glass of water before you leave the bar negates that crime . . . .

Michael Vick does not have a hobby that is “hypocritically considered by many to be cruel.”  He has a hobby that is, unequivocally and completely objectively, cruel. 

If you’ve ever had a pet dog, that you raised from a puppy, I think you would be lying to tell me that you’d put him or her into a ring to get torn to shreds.  That you’d enjoy seeing that.  I suspect, however, that you’ve never had a pet.  When you see how much pain and fear these animals experience, you really should feel something other than pleasure. 

I have no problem with killing animals.  If it’s for a reason beyond entertainment.  See?  Now I’m not a hypocrite.