Earlier, I mentioned the mild mental paralysis that the BP oil leak has inflicted on me. (Soon to be followed by mild physical paralysis, I’m sure, if the wind keeps whipping those fumes up from the Gulf.) From my writing, you might think that I’d given up on the disaster and tuned the whole thing out, but not so. Or well, not entirely.

I’m as furious as everyone else in New Orleans, but I tend to make my statement in my own way. I reblog. I retweet. I trash talk.  And yesterday, I installed Jess3’s  Black Oil Firefox plugin, which covers every online mention of “BP” or “British Petroleum” with a black, inky smudge. (Future versions will allegedly do even niftier stuff like grayscaling BP websites: that’ll show ’em.)

Admittedly, the plugin doesn’t do much for real journalists digging up dirt — and mud and oil and sound bytes — but for overwhelmed wusses like me, it’s a way to feel like we’re doing something subversive while doing absolutely nothing at all.

[Mashable]

Is it in poor taste to call the BP oil leak “draining”? Maybe. But it is — moreso than Katrina, I think.

True, there are a number of similarities between the two: both Katrina and the BP oil leak are man-made disasters, and both have brought out some journalists’ Calvinist disdain for our city and its economy of entertainment. But at heart, the two are very, very different.

At least with Katrina, we felt a small sense of empowerment. In the absence of leadership from City Hall, we took matters into our own hands. If something was wrong in our neighborhood, we called up some friends, and they called two friends, and so on, and so on, until Richard Angelico showed up and the problem was fixed.

But unlike the fallen trees, downed power lines, and black mold that followed the storm, the BP oil leak isn’t right here in our neighborhood. Furthermore, we’re powerless to do much about it except protest and, if we have time, volunteer for cleanup duty. Worse, the BP disaster is ongoing, with no end in sight. At least Katrina had the decency to move on after 12 hours or so.

That may explain why I haven’t talked much about it here. Other sources are doing a great job of covering the BP/Deepwater Horizon disaster and the various fucktardian responses to it, and I don’t think adding my two cents would be worth a nickel.

This was Jeremy Piven over the Memorial Day holiday, chilling on the beach in Malibu:

And this is Jeremy Piven in a completely different situation — possibly from Entourage, but I don’t know, because Entourage is another one of those things I’ve never bothered to bittorrent:

Which raises the question: why would a sensible guy with a fairly good physique order a full-body wax (especially now that hirsute men are in vogue), and tan himself to a color that falls somewhere between “traffic cone” and “Donatella Versace“?

Which raises the answer: a sensible guy wouldn’t; therefore, Piven is senseless.

Word to the unwise: body hair is the friend of the middle-aged man.

[Memorial Day monstrosity via SocialiteLife]

Colby Keller reads from the “Types of Bitches List”.

And beautifully, might I add.

[via Shamama]

Maybe it’s because I’ve been at this a while — and by “this”, I mean “kissing boys” — but I have a hard time looking at a pink triangle and seeing anything other than a symbol for gay rights. But then, I’m not Danish or a woman, and maybe if I were a Danish woman this ad would be slightly less confusing:

Apparently, it’s an ad for a website for ladies — a no-boys-allowed space where womenfolk can talk about Euclid and their ovaries and hypotenuseseseses away from the prying eyes of penis-owners. Frankly, I thought Orkut was doing a fine job of that, but what do I know?

Thanks for confusing me again, Denmark. First, you salt the goddamn licorice (and call it SPUNK), and now this. Great.

Ad credits:

“Geometry? Waxing? GirlTalk.dk – Talk about all your issues”

Advertising Agency: DDB, Copenhagen, Denmark
Creative Director: Jesper Schmidt
Art Directors: Martin Jørgensen, Bue P. Peitersen
Copywriters: Bue P. Peitersen, Martin Jørgensen
DTP: Lasse Salling
Published: March 2010

As a Leo, I’m supposed to crave attention. I don’t, really, but I do like being appreciated. And if that appreciation should come in the form of a spam comment written by a non-native English-speaking spammer, or possibly Google Translate, who am I to judge?

Hi:

Every one on internet searches for really cool content. Its very unfortunate with most of the websites published posts that are boring and out of context articles, just to show that new material is being published. Contrary to that immoral practice, this article is a really cool-written article.

FYI, that was a comment on Tuesday’s Lindsay-Lohan-in-court post, which was not written, much less “cool-written”. So yeah, spam, but I can live with that.

Another little something for your holiday weekend road trip:

1: alphabet st. – prince

2: party shuffle – atom heart

3: cruel intentions (maurice fulton remix) – simian mobile disco

4: robotic hypnotic adventure – neurotic drum band

5: where’s the tape? – triangle orchestra

6: feel the love – azucar

7: open up – jazz n groove

8: house of love (more / phearce mix) – smooth touch

9: can you forgive her? (MK remix) – pet shop boys

10: will be mine (arto mwambe mix) – manuel tur ft. alexander east

11: off the beaten track (carmel mix) – quantic

12: dance sucker (francois k mix) – set the tone

13: house girl (serge & tyrell edit) – rodney bakerr ft. mystic

14: rapture (vector lovers remix) – my robot friend

15: holding the moth (audiojack dub) – underworld

16: bathroom gurgle (tomski fredboys tartlet remix) – late of the pier

17: raised by snakes (shake mix) – telex

18: bees – tanlines

19: raquel – neon neon

20: the glamorous life – sheila e

_________________

62 MINUTES

ART CONCEPT BY VOODUUDE

DOWNLOAD W/ MEGAUPLOAD

[PopularSizes via CTRL+W33D]

I still haven’t watched Hung. Given the fact that my mind resides about three feet below gutter level, you’d think that Hung would be at the top of my to-do list, but you know, I’m not an HBO subscriber, and I’ve never gotten around to bittorrenting the first season (even though a quick search on isoHunt shows that I’d have no problem doing so), and maybe it’s out on DVD, but really, do I seem like the kind of person who buys DVDs? Fewer things, fewer bibelots,  fewer objects in my life, please.

That said, season two looks worthy of my semi-to-full attention:

http://www.hbo.com/bin/hboPlayeru.swf?vid=1096912

…in fact, maybe ESPECIALLY when they’re picking their noses or sitting on the can.

I get it, I get it: there comes a point in every relationship where we accept the icky parts of our lovers’ bodies, like mucus and toenails and poo. I fail to see how taking a Tzabar Romantic vacation will change that — I mean, the guy can just as easily pick his nose on a cruise ship, right? — but you know: advertising.

Anyway, the fact is, I can’t really focus on the ad or its message or its nice art direction (and the terrible posing) because dude is afreakingdorable.

“Take your relationship a step backwards
Tzabar Romantic
Vacations for couples
1-700-500-600”

Advertising Agency: ACW Grey, Israel
Executive Creative Director: Yonatan Stirin
Creative Director: Shani Gershi
Copywriters: Inbal Barak, Shani Gershi
Art Director: Shani Gershi
Account Manager: Dani Brande
Account Superviser: Sarit Sternhell
Agency Producers: Chaguy Eshel, Nurit Rimon
Photographer: Yaron Yitzhakov

I have no idea when this ad was created or where it ran (though recently in South Africa is a reasonable guess), but since the BP/Deepwater Horizon disaster began over a month ago, chances are good that images from the Gulf influenced the art direction. Then again, who knows? Apart from the number of fingers and the direction they’re pointing, maybe all oil leaks look alike.

I’m a little confused about the message, though. I know kids are supposed to hate being laughed at, because that means they’re different, and kids going through puberty, dealing with spontaneous erections and sudden boob growth really just want to hide in the crowd. But don’t kids also like aliens? I mean, Disney tells us they do, and would Disney lie? So are readers of National Geographic Kids meant to groove on the alien coolness, or are they supposed to wanna meet them after school and show them who’s boss?

Anyway, the credits: