Amber

Let’s rank NBC’s non-Parks and Recreation TCAs news, from most to least exciting.

Amy Poehler has inked a three-year overall deal with NBC and Universal TV, the studio behind [Parks and Recreation]. The first project under the pact is a comedy co-created by Poehler, which has received a pilot green light from NBC. Tentatively titled Old Soul, it stars Natasha Lyonne as a young woman who’s trying to find herself, but in the meantime she’s working as the aide to a group of opinionated elderly people. (Via)

That’s very good.

NBC also has greenlighted The Slap, an eight-episode miniseries based on the 2011 Australian short-run series. Brothers & Sisters creator Jon Robin Baitz wrote the adaptation…The Slap is described as a complex family drama that explodes from one small incident where a man slaps another couple’s misbehaving child. This seemingly minor domestic dispute pulls the family apart, begins to expose long-held secrets, and ignites a lawsuit that challenges the core American values of all who are pulled into it. (Via)

That’s hilarious.

NBC has given a 10-episode order to Emerald City, an Oz-themed drama from Siberia creator/showrunner Matthew Arnold. Emerald City, which Arnold is writing and executive producing through Universal Television, is described as a modern and dark reimagining of the classic tale of Oz in the vein of Game of Thrones, drawing upon stories from Baum’s original 14 books that include lethal warriors, competing kingdoms, and the infamous wizard as we’ve never seen him before. (Via)

That’s awfully familiar-sounding to every other gritty fairytale show on TV.

NBC just announced its next big live musical event: Peter Pan.

“We’re very pleased to be underway on Peter Pan as our next live holiday musical for the whole family,” said Robert Greenblatt, NBC Entertainment chairman said in a statement. “In the hopes that lightning strikes twice, we think we’ve landed on another great Broadway musical — which ironically also starred Mary Martin — that is a timeless classic for all audiences, young and old, who just never want to grow up.” (Via)

That’s…no.

Jay Leno’s #TonightShow ends Thursday, Feb. 6 with final guests Billy Crystal and Garth Brooks. (Via)

That’s the most Jay Leno of Jay Leno bookings.

On the pilot front, NBC has greenlighted the drama project starring Grey’s Anatomy alumna Katherine Heigl, now titled State of Affairs. Joe Carnahan is listed as writer/director/executive producer on the project, with original writer, Alexi Hawley (The Following) as executive producer. Produced by Universal TV, State of Affairs stars Heigl as a key CIA attaché who counsels the president on high-stakes incidents around the world. She balances her intense political responsibilities with a complicated personal life. (Via)

That’s unfortunate. So. The good? Amy Poehler. The bad? Everything else.

Via HitFix

Michelle Obama turned fifty this Saturday, and not only is she looking more fabulous than I ever will, Beyoncé performed at her party. Beyoncé was kind enough to upload some photos of the event to her Tumblr. The Carters started their day with a tour of the White House and some quality time with Bo, the Obama’s dog. It is predictably adorable.

John Legend also performed at the event, whose guests included Jennifer Hudson, Samuel L. Jackson and Stevie Wonder (in addition to many others.) The invitation to the party suggested comfortable shoes for dancing, and the President himself reportedly taught guests how to Dougie. FLOTUS has proven she loves to dance with her children’s health initiative (as well a memorable appearance on Jimmy Fallon.) Oh, and Beyoncé performed wearing this:

Guests were there partying until 2 AM.

Photos via Beyoncé’s Tumblr

Bloomberg has a very good overview of how fully paid maternity leave has declined in the last decade and how this has affected women in the workforce.

The lack of paid maternity leave is one reason the U.S. is falling behind other advanced countries in the share of women in the workforce, says Blau of Cornell in Ithaca, New York. The U.S. fell to 17th place in 2010 among 22 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations from sixth in 1990. In 2012, it slipped to 18th.

The U.S. has gone from being “one of the leaders in female labor force participation among the developed countries to the situation where we have one of the lower” rates, said Blau, a co-author of the study, in a phone interview.

Some companies, like Goldman Sachs, which offers 16 weeks of fully paid maternity leave, are adopting more generous policies to retain women workers, while legislators like Senator Kirsten Gillibrand are looking at ways to introduce standard parental leave supported by a public fund. [Thanks to Jessica Grose for the tip.]

Photo: Stewardship

In which Bill Murry takes time out of his busy schedule dropping in on random quinceañeras in Iowa to answer questions about Garfield, sandwich, fan interactions, Lost in Translation, and SNL for Reddit.

Somehow, it’s even better than it sounds. Here’s the best of the length question-and-answer.

(See it all one page here.)

someone asked “what movie was the most fun to act in” and deleted their comment, so here goes:

Well, I did a film with Jim Jarmusch called Broken Flowers, but I really enjoyed that movie. I enjoyed the script that he wrote. He asked me if I could do a movie, and I said “I gotta stay home, but if you make a movie that i could shoot within one hour of my house, I’ll do it.”

So he found those locations. And I did the movie.

And when it was done, I thought “this movie is so good, I thought I should stop.” I didn’t think I could do any better than Broken Flowers, it’s a film that is completely realized, and beautiful, and I thought I had done all I could do to it as an actor. And then 6-7 months later someone asked me to work again, so I worked again, but for a few months I thought I couldn’t do any better than that.

The rumor is that you went up to someone that was eating french fries, and took a french fry and ate it and said: “No one will believe you.” Did this really happen, or is it an urban legend?

Well I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Someone asked “will there be a Garfield 3?”

I don’t think so. I had a hilarious experience with Garfield. I only read a few pages of it, and I kind of wanted to do a cartoon movie, because I had looked at the screenplay and it said “Joel Cohen” on it.

And I wasn’t thinking clearly, but it was spelled Cohen, not Coen.

I love the Coen brothers movies. I think that Joel Coen is a wonderful comedic mind.

So I didn’t really bother to finish the script, I thought “he’s great, I’ll do it.” So then it was months before i got around to actually doing it, and I remember i had to go to a screening room in somewhere, and watch the movie and start working. And because they had had trouble contacting me, they asked my friend Bobby to help corral the whole situation together. So Bobby was there, and you know when you’re looping a movie you’re rerecording to a picture?

So this was an odd movie because the live footage had been shot, but the cat was still this gray blob onscreen. So I start working with this script and I’m supposed to start re-recording and thinking “I can do a funnier line than that” so I would start changing the dialogue that was written for the cat. Which kind of works, it sort of generally works, but then you realize the cat’s over here in a corner sitting on a counter, and I’m trying to think how I can make it make sense. So the other characters are already speaking these lines, and so I’m going “did he really say THAT?” and you’re kind of in this endgame of “how do I chess piece myself out of this one?”

So I worked like that with this gray blob and these lines that were already written, trying to unpaint myself out of a corner. I think I worked 6 or 7 hours for one reel? No, 8 hours. And that was for 10 minutes. And we managed to change and affect a great deal.

The next day I came into work and the producer gave me a set of golf clubs, and I thought “that was kind of extreme, especially since I can’t go play.” And the second reel was even HARDER because the complications of the first ten minutes were triangulated. It was really hard to write my way out of that one. And there were all these people on the other side of the recording studio, and at the end of the reel I was SOAKED In perspiration. I had drunk as much coffee as any columbian ever drank, and I said “you better just show me the rest of the movie.” And they showed me the rest of the movie, and there was just this long, 2 minute silence.

And I probably cursed a little, and I said “I can fix this, but I can’t fix this today. Or this week. Who wrote this stuff?”

And it appeared that one of the people behind the screen was the misspelled Joel Cohen. And I said “how could you have THAT scene take place before this scene? This can’t possibly happen? Who edited this thing?”

And another person behind the glass was the editor of the film. He quit the film that week to go work on another job, so that began a long process of working on the film. I worked the rest of the week on it, and I said “Bobby it is still nowhere near done. But I can’t fix it all, we have to try to do this again.”

It was sort of like Fantastic Mr Fox without the joy or the fun. We did it twice in California, and once in Italy when I was working on the life Aquatic, we were working on an INSANE place in Italy, with a woman who was a voice from above interrupting everything, I cursed again, and she left to take another job, and that was just the first once.

And we managed to fix it, sort of. It was a big financial success. And I said “just promise me, you’ll never do that again.” That you’ll never shoot the footage without telling me.

And they proceeded to do it again. And the next time, they had been shooting for 5 weeks. And I cursed again. I said “I just asked for one little thing, letting me know.” and that one was EVEN HARDER. The second one was beyond rescue, there were too many crazy people involved with it. And I thought I fixed the movie, but the insane director who had formerly done some Spongebob, he would leave me and say “I gotta go, I have a meeting” and he was going to the studio where someone was telling him what it should be, countermanding what I was doing.

They made a movie after that second miscarriage, that went directly to video. So they sort of shot themselves in the foot, the kidneys, the liver and the pancreas on the second one. If you had a finer mind working on them? The girl, Jennifer Love-Hewitt, she was sweet. In the second movie they dressed her like a homeless person. You knew it wasn’t gonna go well.

Every year my dad and I watch Groundhog Day together on Groundhog Day. It’s one of my favorite movies of all time. What was it like filming the same scenes over, and over, and over?

Well, that part was fine, the filming of the scenes over and over because you know that’s what the story is. The scripts is one of the greatest conceptual scripts I’ve ever seen. It’s a script that was so unique, so original, and yet it got not acclaim. To me it was no question that it was the greatest script of the year. To this day people are talking about it, but they forget no one paid any attention to it at the time. The execution of the script, there were great people in it. It was a difficult movie to shoot because we shot in winter outdoors. If you ever get to go to Puxatawney, you should go, it is one of the few things that is BETTER than advertised. It’s really something to see. But doing the movie, shooting the scenes over and over, it’s like an acting challenge. It’s like doing a play and those same scenes over and over and again, so you can try to make it better or deeper or funnier than you made it previously.

What do you think of the current SNL cast?

They’re good. I don’t know them as well as I knew the previous one. But i really feel like the previous cast, that was the best group since the original group. They were my favorite group. Some really talented people that were all comedians of some kind or another. You think about Dana Carvey, Will, Hartman, all these wonderful funny guys. But the last group with Kristen Wiig and those characters, they were a bunch of actors and their stuff was just different. It’s all about the writing, the writing is such a challenge and you are trying to write backwards to fit 90 minutes between dress rehearsal and the airing. And sometimes the writers don’t get the whole thing figured out, it’s not like a play where you can rehearse it several times. So good actors – and those were really good actors, and there are some great actors in this current group as well I might add – they seem to be able to solve writing problems, improvisational actors, can solve them on their feet. They can solve it during the performance, and make a scene work. It’s not like we were improvising when we made the shows, but you could feel ways to make things better. And when you get into the third dimension, as opposed to the printed page, you can see ways to solve things and write things live that other sorts of professionals don’t necessarily have. And that’s why I like that previous group. So this group, there are definitely some actors in this group, I see them working in the same way and making scenes go. They really roll very nicely, they have great momentum, and it seems like they are calm in the moment.

Does that make sense?

What did you whisper in Scarlett Johansson’s ear at the end of Lost In Translation?

You know? I forget.

What was the oddest experience you had in Japan?

The oddest… well, I was eating at a sushi bar. I would go to sushi bars with a book I had called “Making out in Japanese.” it was a small paperback book, with questions like “can we get into the back seat?” “do your parents know about me?” “do you have a curfew?”

And I would say to the sushi chef “Do you have a curfew? Do your parents know about us? And can we get into the back seat?”

And I would always have a lot of fun with that, but that one particular day, he said “would you like some fresh eel?” and I said “yes I would.” so he came back with a fresh eel, a live eel, and then he walked back behind a screen and came back in 10 seconds with a no-longer-alive eel. It was the freshest thing I had ever eaten in my life. It was such a funny moment to see something that was alive that no longer was alive, that was my food, in 30 seconds.

Hi Bill, welcome to Reddit! Yes, people, this is the real Bill Murray. Verified.

I guess? I’ve got ID. I have a passport and a driver’s license. That should get me to Tijuana anyway from here.

How was your experience working on Fantastic Mr.Fox. This is an amazing movie.

Well that was great fun. It was great fun, because it just dragged on and on and on. And it was this fun bunch of people. First we went to our friend’s farm, and we all stayed at her place for a handful of days while we recorded during the day and then at night we would have these magnificent meals and we would all tell stories. We had a LOT of great food, a lot of great wine and great stories. It went on until people started literally falling from their chairs and being taken away. And then we had to go to another place and do it again, we went to George’s place, but then something happen and the whole party broke up, and George said “you don’t have to go, do ya” and I didn’t, so we just kicked around Northern Italy for a while. It was a real fiesta. And then Wes was working in England, so I had to fly to England for like 3 days to re-record, but the re-recording only took about 70 minutes, so that was fun. And then I had to go to Paris, once again, another disaster having to go to Paris to re-record for 20 minutes. It was a terrible, terrible experience. That was a really good job and he did a great job on the film. And Wes’ brother Eric did a great job as the character, he was just amazing. To me he was the high point of the whole thing. And the artisans working in England that built all those sets and did all that work, the mechanicals, to see them work – that was like a treasure. That was like getting to go backstage to see the finest artists at work.

Bill, what’s the best sandwich you’ve ever ate in your life and where was it from?

You know, there’s a place not far from Warner Brothers, I think it was called the Godfather? And they made all kinds of sandwiches with smashed avocado and sprouts and stuff like that. And they really tasted good. And when you were having a bad day, I remember a particularly rough movie, you’d get sandwiches from this place. And they were very filling and very tasty, and then you’d forget about the morning.

How do you feel about recreational marijuana?

Well that’s a large question, isn’t it? Because you’re talking about recreation, which everyone is in favor of. You are also talking about something that has been illegal for so many years, and marijuana is responsible for such a large part of the prison population, for the crime of self-medication. And it takes millions and billions of dollars by incarcerating people for this crime against oneself as best can be determined. People are realizing that the war on drugs is a failure, that the amount of money spent, you could have bought all the drugs with that much money rather than create this army of people and incarcerated people. I think the terror of marijuana was probably overstated. I don’t think people are really concerned about it the way they once were. Now that we have crack and crystal and whatnot, people don’t even think about marijuana anymore, it’s like someone watching too many videogames in comparison. The fact that states are passing laws allowing it means that its threat has been over-exagerated. Psychologists recommend smoking marijuana rather than drinking if you are in a stressful situation. These are ancient remedies, alcohol and smoking, and they only started passing laws against them 100 years ago.

Do you still talk to your deaf/mute assistant? If so, does he pretend like he can understand what you’re saying?

Well, we didn’t part well. I don’t communicate with her, she was a she. I was sort of ambitious thinking that I could hire someone that had the intelligence to do a job but didn’t have necessarily speech or couldn’t quite hear or spoke in sign language. She was a bright person and witty but she had never been away from her home before and even though I tried to accommodate more than I understood when I first hired her, she was very young in her emotional self and the emotional component of being away from her home was lacking. I tried my best, but I was working all day. She was lovely and very smart, but there’s a lot of frustration when you meet people who can’t speak well. Being completely disabled in that area causes a great amount of frustration, and this was going back 30 years or so before ether were the educational components that there are today. It didn’t go particularly well for me, but for a few weeks she really was a light and had a real spirit to her. She was like one of your own kids that never had a job, and then they get a job and realize that certain things are expected, and you can’t react to everything you don’t like or care about. So the first time you have a job and someone says “you have to do this” – it was more complicated than she imagined. We were both optimistic, but it was harder than either of us expected to make it work.

(I’m ducking out of using a cute GIF for this response.)

Do you like peanut butter and pickle sandwiches? I do.

No, I like pickles, I put pickles in lots of sandwiches. I’m big on pickles, but I’ve never had them with peanut butter. I really like peanut butter though. I’m kind of surprised because I like them both so much that I haven’t combined them.

What is it like being so awesome?

Well, nothing prepared me for being this awesome. It’s kind of a shock. It’s kind of a shock to wake up every morning and be bathed in this purple light.

Hi Bill, for some reason my computer has started playing up, freezing and opening random pages when I tried to open up this link. I think my computer is excited that you are on Reddit. I just wanted to ask you, what is one of your best memories of meeting a fan?

The best experience with a fan? It happens sometimes where someone will say “I was going through a really hard time. I was going through a really hard time, and I was just morose or depressed.”

And I met one person who said I couldn’t find anything to cheer me up and I was so sad. And I Just watched Caddyshack, and I watched it for about a week and it was the only thing that cheered me up. And it was the only thing that cheered me up and made me laugh and made me think that my life wasn’t hopeless. That I had a way to see what was best about life, that there was a whole lot of life that was wonderful. And I happen to know (from her own spirit) that that person has really triumphed as an artist and as a human being, and if it’s just a moment when you can reverse a movement, an emotion, a downward spiral, when you can quiet something or still something and just allow it to change and allow the real spirit rise up in someone, that feels great.

I know I’m not saving the world, but something in what I’ve learned how to do or the stories that I’ve tried to tell, they’re some sort of representation of how life is or how life could be. And that gives some sort of optimism. And an optimistic attitude is a successful attitude.

Fuck, 30 minutes late. Now Bill Murray won’t ever acknowledge my existence.

What? What do you mean by that? Acknowledge your existence?

If you’re acknowledging your existence, and I’m acknowledging it, it’s happening.

Hi Bill, you are the inspiration for a presentation my colleague Mike made about advertising on reddit: “Making Ads Suck Less (Or Why Brands Should Be More Like Bill Murray)”. Will you pretty please take a look at the presentation and tell us what you think? We would love a quote from you, our hero and spiritual guide.

Well I don’t know if brands should be more like Bill Murray, but there’s no question they should suck less. I think if you just hold that though in front of yourself, like a marching brand trumpet player has the music mounted on his trumpet, about how to make ads suck less, then that will inform your daily life. It will be the last thing you think before you go to bed, and the first thing you think about in the morning, and you will add up the cumulative data of which ads are bearable to you, which ads you respond to. Ads aren’t bad in themselves. It’s just the attitude. We all have to go to the store, we all have to have groceries, but there’s a way to sell you things to make the exchange more of a human one. Sometimes you buy things from someone because you like their style. They watch with some fascination about the way YOU choose. If you think the ad will work backwards to what you’re trying to tell them in the first place.

If you could go back in time and have a conversation with one person, who would it be and why?

That’s a grand question, golly.

I kind of like scientists, in a funny way. Albert Einstein was a pretty cool guy. The thing about Einstein was that he was a theoretical physicist, so they were all theories. He was just a smart guy. I’m kind of interested in genetics though. I think I would have liked to have met Gregor Mendel.

Because he was a monk who just sort of figured this stuff out on his own. That’s a higher mind, that’s a mind that’s connected. They have a vision, and they just sort of see it because they are so connected intellectually and mechanically and spiritually, they can access a higher mind. Mendel was a guy so long ago that I don’t necessarily know very much about him, but I know that Einstein did his work in the mountains in Switzerland. I think the altitude had an effect on the way they spoke and thought.

But I would like to know about Mendel, because i remember going to the Philippines and thinking “this is like Mendel’s garden” because it had been invaded by so many different countries over the years, and you could see the children shared the genetic traits of all their invaders over the years, and it made for this beautiful varietal garden.

Where was the last place you played golf and where is your favorite place to play golf?

My favorite place to play golf is in Ireland. that’s where my ancestors come from, and it’s the most beautiful country to play golf in, and when you come as a guest to play golf you are treated like a king.

And the last place I played golf? Well the last place I can think of is I was working on a job in Hawaii with Emma Stone, and one day I got to play golf at a place called Weilea on a place called Oahu. I played with Scott Simpson, and I played with 3 other great, great Hawaiian guys who were SO much fun and so positive, and one was the club champion. And when you play with great players, you play better, it just elevates your game. A high tide raises all boats, you’ve heard that one?

I played so well, I won $50. Winning $50 playing golf? That’s money. So I won $50, and they couldn’t believe I could putt, and that I didn’t choke. We played into the sunset on the pacific ocean, with leaning palm trees, laughing the entire time.

But then this very positive group of people said on the next day, “we want to take you on a outrigger canoe to go surfing waves in the pacific.”

It was delirious. It was something everyone should get a chance to do.

That was a round of golf, where it went EVEN further. And they now are my friends.

And I went from the surf, to the plane, and that was the end of my job. I was all salty, I had a lei around my neck, I was charmed.

undocumentedny:

theysayimpsychodiaries:

_{Chimamanda Adichie - The Danger of a Single Story (TED Talks 2009)}

Tell me again, what did you say about representation not being important?

This gifset goes perfectly with an article I just read. This is why media representation is so important. Because it brainwashes our children to not even see themselves in their OWN stories.

Just read Adichie’s new novel Americanah, which I highly recommend. Great book, and not too much weather in it.

You know how you and your roommates have all been using your parents’ HBO Go password to watch Game of Thrones for the past two seasons because you decided to start investing the cable money into your new online exotic animals business? Totally cool, says HBO’s CEO.

“It’s not that we’re unmindful of it, it just has no impact on the business,” HBO CEO Richard Plepler said. It is, in many ways, a “terrific marketing vehicle for the next generation of viewers,” he said, noting that it could potentially lead to more subscribers in the future.

“We’re in the business of creating addicts.” [Buzzfeed]

Between this and the time Jeff Bewkes — the CEO of HBO’s parent company, Time Warner — said setting piracy records was “better than an Emmy,” HBO is well on their way to becoming the Cool Dad of television networks. I half expect the network to send out a press release later today telling us that it’s cool if we all have a few beers with our friends after the dance as long as no one drives and everyone sleeps there.

Plepler also touched on the much-discussed, not-yet-available, direct-to-consumer model of HBO Go, which would allow consumers to access the product without a standard cable subscription, and in the process he gave one of my favorite business quotes in a long time.

The company is experimenting in the Nordic with direct-to-consumer HBO Go, which Plepler said was doing “very well.” When asked directly whether HBO Go was going direct to consumers, he said, “it’s all about arithmetic dude, it’s all about the math. The thing we are always thinking about is adding value.”

“It’s all about the arithmetic, dude.” Yup, that settles it. HBO is TV’s Cool Dad.

Source: Buzzfeed

Thank god for Creedence Clearwater Revival. Were it not for their “Bad Moon Rising” in the new The Walking Dead trailer, I wouldn’t know that the show about zombies in which everyone dies and there’s no hope for anyone and they’re never going to find a cure and what’s the point of ever trying to find happiness is depressing.

There’s trouble on the way, and his name is COORRRRRAAAAALLLLL.

Tracy and I are friends because in 2009 we caught each other rolling our eyes at the same thing.  At some point during one of the first BlogHer FoodBlog Conferences Rocco DiSpirito was trying to sell us on the merits of frozen risotto reheated into an almost glue-like paste.  Rocco was wearing one of those Madonna style Vogue microphones and jogging through the labyrinth of tables being his own frozen risotto hype man.  Oh Rocco.  Thank you for your enthusiasm for frozen risotto, it was bologna but you made two people friends for life.

I caught Tracy rolling her eyes at Rocco’s fist pump just as I was equally disturbed.

In my memory she says something like, “Want to grab a drink at the bar?” and I respond with a “Race you to the escalator!”. Friends for life!

While my kitchen life is haphazardly piled high, operating near chaos, Tracy’s organization situation is ship-shape.  We’re incredibly different. Tracy is organized, loves even numbers, and wears black and white.  I’m disorganized, don’t even want to talk about numbers, and dress like Punky Brewster.

Tracy came down from San Francisco to Los Angeles to help me organize my life.  She is the only one I’d feel safe revealing the madness of my medicine cabinet to. Good grief.  She only judged me a little.  Also… I embraced big hair (don’t care).  Welcome to the latest Bonkers Awesome episode on ulive!

It’s the weekend!  Let’s consider a cocktail.  Maybe it’ll inspire you to clean a bookshelf, too!  Everyone should have a Tracy in their life.  Oh man… for real.

These cocktails are bright, seasonal, and simple.  Fresh pink grapefruit, thinly sliced cucumber, spicy ginger beer, and gin!  Sweet and fresh meets spicy and gin.  It’s everything it should be.

Happy weekend, my friends!  Cheers to living!

Oh!  The pretty wooden spoon in the above picture can be found here.  The paper straws are just a byproduct of food blogging.  Apologies all around.

The dire state of my bangs on January 9, 1992 warrants both a suicide threat and a frowning face in my signature.

hydrogeneportfolio:

Minimal Posters - Six Women Who Changed Science. And The World.

Hunter S. Thomcat has the unique ability to see things on tv screens.  This means that when I watch Doctor Who, he watches it with me (which is nice), but it also means that he’s constantly leaping onto the screen whenever David Tennant makes a particularly quick move.  Not that I blame him.

The problem, however, comes about when I’m typing, scrolling down on my computer, or watching something on youtube.  Then he attacks the monitor (accompanied by mewling and banging that’s so loud that Victor assumes an angry neighbor is at the door again).  This will go on for hours if I let it.

For the sake of example, this is what happens when I pull up a screensaver that looks like a pug is licking your computer screen clean.

(If I’ve done this right it should be a short gif.  If not, please just pretend it is.)

Honestly, I don’t know whether Hunter is trying to play with him, rescue him, or murder him.  Regardless, it’s adorable.  And almost impossible to work around.

And this is why I need an office with actual doors.

I started reading these daily routines of 100 different mothers around the world yesterday (via Jessica Stanley’s lovely blog) and now I CANNOT STOP READING THEM.

There is no scroll, no page numbers, and a LOT of typewriting on construction paper about breastfeeding and throwing pears on the ground. They are all incredibly fascinating (to me) and now my routine, were I to type it up on construction paper would be something like:

9 a.m.: Wake up to boyfriend making coffee, eat breakfast in bed.
9:30 a.m.: Shower, get dressed.
10 a.m.: Get back in bed, open laptop, read typewritten routines of mothers I don’t know for next 15 hours.
1 a.m.: Go to bed.

It turns out these daily routines are part of an art project called Artist Residency in Motherhood by Lenka Clayton, the premise of which I kind of love:

Artist Residency in Motherhood is an unusual artist residency that was created by the artist, is funded by the Pittsburgh Foundation and is taking place inside the artist’s own home and life as a mother of a one-year old child.

Lenka Clayton, conceptual artist and full-time mother created Artist Residency in Motherhood as both a personal and political statement. Artist residencies are not usually intended for artists who have families. Mostly, they are designed as a way to let artists escape from the routines and responsibilities of their everyday life. Artist Residency in Motherhood is different. Set firmly inside the traditionally “inhospitable” environment of a family home, it subverts the art-world’s romanticisation of the unattached (often male) artist, and frames motherhood as a valuable site, rather than an invisible labor, for exploration and artistic production.

Artist Residency in Motherhood provides the artist with a studio, materials, a travel allowance, monthly stipend, studio assistance, mentorship and accountability. For the 227 days of the residency the fragmented mental focus, exhaustion, nap-length studio time and countless distractions of parenthood as well as the absurd poetry of time spent with a young child will become the artist’s working materials and situation, rather than obstacles to be escaped from.

As most know by this point, Colorado legalized marijuana and society collapsed when the clock struck midnight on January 1st. The resulting bedlam has allowed vandals to steal a 420 mile marker sign from the side of the highway to satisfy their own sinister cannabis-fueled needs.

Luckily, the Colorado Department of Transportation is there with a thrifty and creative solution. From Fox News:

Amy Ford of the Colorado Department of Transportation says the “MILE 420″ sign near Stratton was stolen for the last time sometime in the last year, and officials replaced it with a sign that says “MILE 419.99.”

The number “420″ has long been associated with marijuana, though its origins as shorthand for pot are murky.

Ford says it’s the only “420″ sign to be replaced in the state that recently legalized recreational marijuana. Most highways aren’t long enough to need one.

“Obviously people steal these signs,” Ford said, the Denver Post reported. “In the past, if a sign was stolen too much we wouldn’t replace it. This is sort of an innovative way for us to keep the sign there,” she said.

Mile 419.99, about 25 miles from the Kansas border, isn’t the only place in Colorado with a fractional mile marker. Cameron Pass in Larimer County has a “MILE 68.5″ sign after frequent thefts of the “MILE 69″ sign.

That’s fair, balanced and self aware reporting right there. The only problem is that now they’ve reported on this odd looking decimal sign along the highway, I kinda want to go steal. It sounds like a lot of fun and I can even buy some weed while I’m there. Who’s going with me?

(Lead image via Boing Boing / Stuff Journalists Like)

Feel free to print this out for your archives or send a copy to every journalist you know. Click through for a high-res version.

Will you be handling photographs? You might need to wear gloves. Are you a bandleader, performing a medical procedures, or Mickey Mouse? You are already wearing gloves. Otherwise? Go crazy with those naked fingers (but not too crazy, you’re in an archives!)

Gregory Keating wants to meet his biological father, and he’s building a pretty good case that the man he’s looking for might be everyone’s favorite lanky ginger. Greg was conceived while his mother was working three stories above the Late Night studio at 30 Rock back in 1993. He’s awkward around girls and the only dance he knows is string-based. Also, he looks exactly like a baby-fied Conan O’Brien.

Greg Keating

April 30 will mark the 10th anniversary of the release of Mean Girls, a film that was once referred to as “starring Lindsay Lohan and three other girls” and is now known as “starring Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried, that other girl and whatsherface.” All these years and one terrible sequel later, the folks at Stella and Bow are making sure that you have a better way to remind everyone that the movie you loved as a teenager (or 20-something) has stuck with you well into your 20s (or 30s), as they will soon release a very special line of Mean Girls jewelry for you and your own gang of Plastics.

“Most all of our favorite movies have been capitalized upon, via clothing, home goods, fashion accessories, etc … except for Mean Girls,” Lauren Brokaw, who founded Stella and Bow in 2011 with Lindsey Lerman, tells Pret-a-Reporter. She says she notches the film on her list alongside Clueless and recently watched it again with her teenage niece. “For its 10th anniversary, we wanted to pay homage to our favorite movie, which has provided countless hours of entertainment and fun.” (Via The Hollywood Reporter)

But what about something for the guys? Perhaps a pendant that reads: “Lindsay Lohan vomited on me.” Because I’m willing to bet that there are a few real-life Aaron Samuels who can say that with plenty of shame.

Among the pieces you can purchase next month are the “Regina,” which is a bracelet that reads: “You can’t sit with us.” It’s perfect for any child aspiring to be a colossal C-word, ironically or not.

And the “Cady” Fetch bracelet. Something something stop trying to make Fetch jewelry happen.

Finally, there’s the “Ms. N” Best Bitches broken heart necklaces that I have already pre-ordered for Vince and I to wear.

$53.23 is a small price to pay to display sassy friendships.

If you spend more than five minutes on Tumblr you are more than likely to run into a Jennifer Lawrence GIF set, and that GIF set is more than likely going to involve her being adorably self-deprecating and/or talking about food and how much she wants to eat it. This is why we love her so.

And that’s why when an anonymous Tumblr takes video footage of her recent conversation with W Magazine explaining exactly why she fell when walking up the stairs to accept her Oscar at last year’s Academy Awards and turns it into GIFs what you end up with is near perfect internet. If you’re a fan of Jennifer Lawrence, that is. And a fan of GIF sets. And cake. Let’s not forget about cake.

Jennifer Lawrence Daily via Tastefully Offensive. Banner via Getty Image.

Have you ever thought your cat just wasn’t deadly enough? Good news, weirdo! Etsy seller Schnabuble has created cat battle armor from vegetable-tanned leather, and it even has the option to be used with a leash. Because if there’s anything a cat loves more than being shoved into clothing, it’s being put in clothing and then dragged by a leash.

The seller, who also makes Iron Man style Mark IV bracers and Game Of Thrones inspired coats, describes the cat battle armor:

Your cat will become an unstoppable force for slaughter in this fully articulated suit, shielding him/her from foes while allowing unimpeded movement across the battlefield or living room floor. The imposing torso section features several riveted, articulated plates and a terrifying rack of dorsal spines.

Just what my cat needs: more sharp things to scrape across my face while I’m sleeping. And at only $500, this armor pays for itself with all the free facial exfoliation treatments!

Although this isn’t the first time we’ve seen cat armor, it is the first time we’ve seen it for sale. Here are more pictures of Selani the confused cat in the leather armor.

More pictures (and cat armor!) available at Schnabuble. Hat tip to Kotaku and to their commenter Prayer Police for the Sophisticated Cat meme idea.

Often, cocktail menus are a little ridiculous.

I am totally going to order some drinks like these at my usual fancy but still cool bar pub speakeasy tonight!

Well this is all coming together very quickly. Just last night HBO announced the premiere date for Season 4 of Game of Thrones, and now today they’ve posted five action-packed Vines from the new season’s trailer, which debuts this Sunday night at 8:58 p.m., just before the series premiere of True Detective. Scroll on down if you want to see glamour shots of Khaleesi and Jon Snow running around swinging swords like Shinobi.

NOTE: Yes, it is a little silly, when you really, really think about it, that we are all getting very excited over what amounts to previews of a preview, but on the other hand EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE LOOGIT EM FIGHT EEEEEEEEEEEEE. So there are fair arguments to be made on either side of the issue.

From Sweets

[Photograph: Max Falkowitz]

When the storage apples of winter lose their autumn crispness, it's best to turn to pears. Pears keep their flavor better through the cold of January, and unlike apples, which are famously finnicky to cook, pears welcome heat with ease.

One of the easiest ways to cook a pear is to poach it in syrup or wine. Almost as easy: to turn that poached pear into sorbet. Doing so makes for a no-fuss, zero-fat dessert that's just as creamy as ice cream.

Plenty of wines are good for poaching pears, but Riesling is especially nice. Look for one with moderate sweetness but good acidity that has an alcohol content around 12%.

Once we're talking Riesling, we might as well talk ginger, too. It goes fabulously with pears, but its clean, crisp heat also jives with Riesling's mineral backbone. There's a lot of ginger in this sorbet, enough to ensure a real spicy kick. Tone it down if you're feeling timid but don't be afraid to go full-throttle.

About the author: Max Falkowitz is the New York editor and ice cream maker in residence at Serious Eats. You can follow him on Twitter at @maxfalkowitz.

From Drinks

[Photograph: Shutterstock]

My high school has an annual grapefruit sale to raise funds for the exchange student program. What Texas grapefruits have to do with bringing German exchange students to our Oregon high school (and sending Oregonians over to France to learn to properly eat croissants and cheese) isn't quite clear to me, but I'm grateful to those grapefruits for helping the program to go on. Though I'm more years out of high school than I'd care to remember, my mother still goes down to the school to buy a big box every year, and winter visits always mean morning grapefruits, full of tangy, puckery sweet-sour flavor.

If you've done your breakfast duties and you're looking for more ways to use up this awesome winter citrus, the answer is clearly a cocktail or two. Here are six of our favorite grapefruit cocktail recipes to get you started.

Bitter Salty Perro

[Photo: Heather Meldrom]

This simple pitcher cocktail goes to the savory side if you use mezcal. If you don't have mezcal on hand, silver tequila works fine, too. It's mixed with freshly squeezed pink grapefruit juice and your favorite tonic, and served in salt-rimmed glasses. A great brunch drink!

Get the Recipe »

New Brunswick

[Photo: Wes Rowe]

Fresh juice grapefruit works well here with rich and earthy Rittenhouse Rye, sweetened up with a bit of Carpano Antica vermouth. This cocktail really showcases the citrus as much as the whiskey.

Get the Recipe »

Long Faced Dove

[Photo: Maggie Hoffman]

This recipe will help you mix up grapefruit cocktails for a crowd, spiked with tequila and a little bittersweet Campari. The fresh grapefruit juice shines, though there's also a squeeze of lime to brighten the drink further. Spicy ginger beer adds fizz to keeps things light.

Get the Recipe »

Great Gatsby

[Photo: Robyn Lee]

This one's an easy-drinking crowd pleaser, made with vodka and fresh grapefruit juice, plus a little Lillet Blanc to add richness.

Get the Recipe »

The Storm Cloud

[Photo: Nick Guy]

If you're feeling a little more adventurous, try playing up the bitterness in your favorite winter citrus with a little Fernet and Cocchi Americano. The result is not too boozy, but plenty entertaining.

Get the Recipe »

Grapefruit and Ginger Sparkler

[Photo: Kelly Carámbula]

We find it hard to resist a ginger drink, and this is an easy sell: festive sparkling wine (it doesn't have to be fancy), tart grapefruit juice, and a touch of Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur for sweetness. Easy and elegant.

Get the Recipe »

About the Author: Maggie Hoffman is a Senior Editor at Serious Eats, based in San Francisco. She founded Serious Eats: Drinks in 2011. You can follow her on Twitter @maggiejane.

Chen Guangbiao is worth $740 million, but that’s not the most interesting thing about the Chinese businessman who’s trying to buy the New York Times — no, that would be that he’s the Most Influential Person of China, Most Prominent Philanthropist of China, AND China Earthquake Rescue Hero. Killer resume, bro.

That’s according to Guangbiao’s business card, which reads like a lost-in-translation Chinese food restaurant (“America #1 Food Cuisine”). Guangbiao’s Wiki entry on China.org notes that he’s “famous for his high-profile but questionably motivated charity drive.” That can’t be true — people with business cards are always honest folk.

Via Business Insider

From Serious Eats: New York

Anthony Bourdain with Singaporean street food champion K. F. Seetoh. [Photograph: Singapore Tourism Board]

After diversions to writing, TV, and book publishing, Anthony Bourdain's coming back to restaurants—not as a cook, but as the organizer of a massive market devoted to international street food. The Post reported this morning that Bourdain is bringing the food court to the financial district and is looking for developers now.

Eater got more details about the plan to feature "cuisines from all around the world," which for Bourdain means cooking from the likes of Singaporean hawker centers, Mexican street vendors, and the Spanish Boqueria.

Food courts like this one have acted as sites of cultural preservation. In Singapore, for instance, hawker centers were built by the government as a way to get cooks out of the street without killing their business. The Essex Street Market in New York was built for the same reason.

Bourdain goes on: "I hope to soon be able to enjoy a really good Chicken Rice in NYC." So say we all.

Doug Brown’s profile of two Cleveland bookies named Steve and Luke who run an illegal gambling business together is FASCINATING.

The story covers some background as to how the business operates (you have to have the cash flow to pay out if your whole clientele wins on the same night), the stresses they endure (getting caught, paying out, catching every game, the IRS), and how they built their customer base (“Degenerate gamblers tend to know other degenerate gamblers”).

Not surprisingly, they got into the business as a way to pay down their own crushing gambling debts:

Steve and Luke were $20,000 in debt to bookies when they decided to make a change. You can’t bet your way out of betting debt. All Steve had then was the money from his minimum wage job, student loans and what he borrowed from his unsuspecting family. He cried himself to sleep wondering what he’d have to sell next to dig himself out of the hole he gambled himself into.

“Me and Steve, we both thought we knew more than Vegas so we thought we’d just start betting big with our bookies and then on the side, we just take a little action,” says Luke. “With our bookies, if we lost, we decided we’d just pay that off with the action we were taking in. But we got really, really in the hole with our bookie and Steve was crying a lot.”

Oof. Steve wants to quit the bookie business, and Luke obliged, but in the end he couldn’t bring himself to. Why? Because the job scratches his ‘gambling itch’ so if he quit, he’d just go back to gambling and would be right back where he started.

On the bright side, I have a whole new understanding of what went on in the Sopranos!

Photo: Bob Jagendorf

There are many ways to celebrate David Bowie’s birthday: listen to his music, watch one of his movies, write slash fiction based on the famous photo of the Thin White Duke hanging with Lou Reed and Iggy Pop, try to make sense of what the hell happened on Earthling. Or, perhaps, you could choose to ignore it, because every passing year brings us that much closer to a world without Bowie in it, and that world sounds scary and cold.

Man, things got dark there. Sorry. To make amends, here’s a GIF of David Bowie with a kitten on his head.

You’re welcome.

Via Getty Image, GIF via Tumblr

aquaeverything:

itmeansnoworriez:

TOKIO makes out with furniture..

TOKIO tries to find different realistic-looking objects, that are actually made of chocolate in a room

Japan remains decades ahead of the United States in the nonscripted television department.