Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan said showing both eyes encouraged women to use eye make-up to look seductive. The question of how much of her face a woman should cover is a controversial topic in many Muslim societies.
I presume these were comments from Dave since they don't appear in the article:
I'm not going to argue, seeing both eyes is pretty hot.
But doesn't he get it. Less is more. Seeing just one eye will work up men into such a frenzied state, that no amount of sexual deviance will satisfy them. Or maybe that's his plan.
A bonus that he didn't mention? With a one-eye veil you also won't confuse women with ninjas!
Yes, the guy robbed a bank, but everything about this story is amusing. A guy approached a Bank of America location wearing a dust mask and carrying a pump sprayer (which makes me picture Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men) which he used to spray an armored truck guard with pepper spray. He then grabbed a bag of money and ran away.
While running he stripped off a bunch of clothes to look like some people he had recruited off Craigslist. The people had no idea they were playing decoys:
"I came across the ad that was for a prevailing wage job for $28.50 an hour," said Mike, who saw a Craigslist ad last week looking for workers for a road maintenance project in Monroe. He said he inquired and was e-mailed back with instructions to meet near the Bank of America in Monroe at 11 a.m. Tuesday. He also was told to wear certain work clothing.
"Yellow vest, safety goggles, a respirator mask... and, if possible, a blue shirt," he said.
Mike showed up along with about a dozen other men dressed like him, but there was no contractor and no road work to be done. He thought they had been stood up until he heard about the bank robbery and the suspect who wore the same attire.
The guy then proceeded to escape down the Skykomish River via inner tube. That's probably the first time an inner tube has been used as a getaway vehicle.
This week's episode was
finally more plot-focused. The storylines of E's script managing and Ari's attempt to bring Vince back to relevance collided and ended up (after a bunch of conflict) with an offer that would satisfy everyone. But the now-renamed Smokejumpers writers were all about getting Ed Norton and were quite disappointed that he had dropped out, and E got a chance at the very end of the episode to truly satisfy everyone. The problem? He'd have to convince Alan Gray to give Vince the 2nd lead and they snubbed him earlier in Aquaman sequel negotiations. The last shot of the episode with E was funny, and I'm glad he didn't get to say anything to Ari or Vince.
Shauna and Turtle watch Drama implode on The View
And of course we had a Drama side-adventure where he went on The View for Five Towns publicity, and the whole thing somehow turned into an interrogation of his now-ended relationship. You knew it was coming since he got asked about 100 times by Turtle, Vince, Shauna, etc. if he would be allright before he appeared on The View. The whole aftermath with him getting arrested was pretty silly. They've left the possibility that there will be a huge positive reaction to Drama's appearance, so that could be interesting. Otherwise the whole plot was just a waste of time.
There was an unfortunate lack of great one-liners this episode. Or at least I can't remember any that stuck out...free to post a comment if you found any memorable ones.
This was a review of Episode 58. See more reviews. And here's HBO's music credits for this episode (may not be up yet).
I hate to keep harping on this, particularly because I usually don't enjoy political discussions, particularly in the internet medium. For the most part people that have certain views tend to keep those views and see others' views as irrational, and that really applies to everyone. And for those that enjoy that kind of thing, there's enough forums on the internet already.
However, I can't help but notice that the whole Palin situation has been surreal/unnatural. The press are getting no access to her (they're finally starting to make a lot of noise about it), she's not giving interviews, etc. We're nearing a month before the election and the McCain campaign is trying to cancel (or at least postpone) the VP debate. Isn't anyone, and I particularly mean Republicans who are willing to vote her into office, interested in knowing her opinions and thoughts on actual issues? We've gotten nothing but smokescreens and distractions about her family, scandal, etc. but she could just waltz into the White House without anyone really knowing how she'd handle political situations.
We don't have much to go on, but I found her interview with Katie Couric pretty revealing, since she actually got asked some difficult questions. The thing is, these questions shouldn't have been unexpected, and she still floundered. Note that the second half of the second video includes some of the footage from Part I again, even though it is marked Part II.
Let's see...everyone, not just the US, but "The World" is looking to McCain to see how he fixes the economy. Right, I believe that. Because he'll walk into Washington and flip a switch only he has the strength to flip and will save the world while everyone else debates bailout proposals. Per Palin, Barack has no track record in comparison to John McCain on the economy. The same McCain who has admitted to not understanding the economy, who has made several incorrect remarks about the economy in just the past week (not just the fundamentals quote he tried to argue was a misunderstanding), and this coming from Sarah Palin's extensive knowledge of Obama's track record (which she proved last week is non-existent with her "federal transparency" comment). Actually, I should be more understanding...she probably meant Obama has no track record in Alaska since that seems to be all she's aware of.
The best part was when Couric asked if Plain was supporting a moratorium on foreclosures to help homeowners. She clearly didn't know the answer and started saying they were working on a multi-faceted solution. No. Fucking. Shit. You mean, you can't just fix this whole multi-billion dollar mess with a single strategy? Brilliant! But Katie Couric wasn't distracted and pressed for her actual view on the moratorium, at which point Palin was forced to admit she didn't know. Likewise during other questions she started bringing up healthcare and other issues instead of addressing the question. Is it any wonder they're trying to postpone the VP debate?
I guess the good thing that came out of this for Palin was that they didn't bring up sexism, which has already been used to try and discredit findings against her that aren't sexist in the slightest. Really the most sexist comment made towards Palin came from the new president of Pakistan!
Not just snubbed, he got dropped as part of the "campaign suspension" of McCain for the economy, but then McCain appeared in an interview with Katie Couric. Letterman proceeded to rail on him:
Did I mention he's also proposing rescheduling the presidential debate to October 2nd, which would bump the VP debate to even later? And this after the media's already screaming about how there's been no press conferences or interviews with Palin. Though to be fair, it's a smart move on their part...she doesn't know anything, but if nobody can talk to her or interview her (except a few people who just throw her softballs), people won't get to find out just how little she knows or how naive/ill-fated her ideas are. Biden would definitely school her in a debate.
This week's episode was
pretty awesome. I think this was particularly the case because there were only two plotlines instead of a mix of several things going on, or uninteresting sideplots.
First off, Ari's wife kicked off the Ari/Davies battle by buying him a shiny red Ferrari. After he ran into Adam Davies on the street, they did a bunch of illegal street racing in which it looked like Davies should have crashed several times. Not to mention Ari somehow came to a complete stop despite driving over 50 miles an hour. Soon Ari and Adam were going back-and-forth with pranks and embarrassing each other (Ari sent Davies poop, Davies sent Ari "hot cops", Ari sent Davies pics of his girlfriend, Davies sent Ari a nude shot of his wife) which culminated in Ari going ape-shit and hunting down Adam. I was disappointed that Davies caved so easily in apologizing, but seeing Ari that mad was quite amusing.
Ari confronts Davies
The second major plot involved Vince's attempt to make some cash and avoid bankruptcy. I found the Marvin character pretty stupid/useless...they couldn't have just gone straight to Shauna? Shauna got Vince a sweet 16 appearance, and we find out the parents are played by Fran Drescher (ugh! ...at least she didn't do her laugh) and Kevin Pollack. They ended up striking a deal where Vince only had to sing a song to their daughter, who turned out to be some goth-looking girl who kept talking about having sex with everyone, especially Vince. But Drama decided to "save" Vince by adding his own drunken singing, and then ended up puking all over the cake which was really pretty hilarious. Also, didn't they say they were inviting 300 people to the party? From their panning around when Vince was introduced, it looked like less than 100.
Overall, a pretty solid episode. Really it was the Davies/Ari showdown that made it. And of course, it's looking like my prediction from last week is looking good with the "9 Brave Souls" script blowing up with Ed Norton. But I wonder if the fact that it's turning into a "studio script" will introduce some twist...either becoming big enough for Vince to appear in and rejuvenate his career (though he acted disinterested when E was telling him the news about Ed Norton), or becoming so different from what it was that the original writers will get pissed off and back out of it (can they do that? I don't know).
This was a review of Episode 57. See more reviews. And here's HBO's music credits for this episode (may not be up yet).
I accidentally dropped the ball again...I'm not used to Entourage Sundays yet! Here's a late-but-great episode summary.
This week's episode was
encouraging. We got some nice one-liners, plenty of profanity from Ari, an appearance from Marky Mark Wahlberg, and some decent and compelling storylines. I thought it was funny that E fully expected that Ari was going to help him out, and Ari reacted as you'd assume...by telling E that it was a dog-eat-dog business and he had no interest in helping him. Of course then Eric made a surprise move by basically backstabbing Ari, though I feel like the end of this can be predicted already...E successfully discovers and capitalizes on this script, and Ari will be left screaming and pounding his desk for skipping the opportunity.
They must have taken heed of Mark's comment from last week (link), because they finally got rid of Drama's video-girlfriend. I don't think anyone's going to miss her. And as usual Turtle is just trying to get laid and not doing much...what happened to his music career?? I wonder if these developments mean we'll be getting some more ridiculous Turtle and Drama adventures, or if it means we'll hear more about Drama and Five Towns.
Ari and Vince's conversation was cool...very concisely conveying to Vince that he had to stop acting like an idiot and start taking things more seriously. And implying he hasn't done any good acting yet.
As usual Lloyd was hilarious. Lloyd (referring to Vince's arrival): "He's here...he's here....he's h..here!" Ari: "What are you, speed balling fairy dust? Go out there and greet him like a man!"
Vince and E pay Ari a visit
There were some fantastic one-liners and general profanities. Here's just a sample:
Eric: "I found that one." Ari: "What did you jerk it out of Turtle's cock?"
"Rusty..cunt..bucket.....fuck!" - Ari during golf
"I'm freakin'! I'm butt-fuckin' freakin'...are you serious?!?" - Writer of Nine Great Souls
E: "You want us to sit around and do nothing?" Ari: "Yes, you should sit around and do nothing. Or maybe go to Vinnie's super-secret hideaway in Mexico and come back when you're tan. Or tall. Whichever comes first!"
E: "You calling to apologize?" Ari: "I'm calling to tell you that I blame you for every bad thing that's ever happened to Vince, and every bad thing that ever could happen to him for the rest of his life. (throws someone's phone to the ground) You're the un-fuckin' lucky charm, you hear me? (Kicks mail cart) You should never utter the words 'I found a good script', 'cause you have no idea what a good fuckin' script looks like. Live with that!"
The return of Entourage caught me by surprise even though I had posted about it, so now that the fall season is getting rolling here's a rundown of the start dates of some awesome shows starting up again:
This week's episode was
interesting. First off you had reactions to Medellin sucking, as expected. And Vince and Turtle were living it up on the beach. E and Ari went crazy when an offer for Vince presented itself, though that turned into quite a twist. Ari's reaction was hilarious.
The whole gang at the beach
A couple of things did annoy me about the episode though...Vince was way to easily convinced by E to go for the movie after he very obviously didn't give a crap. And his ignoring him on the first phone call seemed kind of ridiculous too. I also wonder if anything will come of the fact that Drama just took off from the poster shoot.
And I really hope they don't keep going off on the Murphy Group storyline during the season...it'd be good to see E get to be more of a manager, but it's hard to care about anyone else he's managing.
Finally, it was cool to see they added Lloyd (Rex Lee) to the opening credits. He's always amusing/funny and I wonder if that means we're going to see more of him.
Overall it's cool to have Entourage back, though this episode didn't establish much of the vibe for this season yet. I'm sure things will be getting interesting though.
Google is launching their own open-source web browser tomorrow in 100 countries. The browser's called Google Chrome, and there's several reasons they decided to build their own (based on Webkit) rather than just latch on to Firefox.
The perceived need for a new browser was prompted by the new generation of websites that are really web-based applications. The original browsers were not built with this purpose in mind, and consequently there's a lot of struggles by both users and site developers in using these applications. For instance, you could be using Photoshop Express, YouTube, Gmail, and Google Calendar all at the same time. What happens if the Google calendar tab ends up trying to process something impossible or waiting on a server request indefinitely? You can't get to any of your other tabs. And if that process ends up crashing, it takes down the whole browser with it.
That's one of the big features in Google's new browser. Separate tabs are actually separate operating system processes, so they can't take each other down or cause everything to stall because they're waiting on something as with most current popular browsers.
Related: The browser remembers search boxes from pages - If you went to Amazon.com, later you can type "Amazon" in the Omnibar, hit tab, and then type your search in the Omnibar as well...it seems like it saves the search boxes automatically
The start page - they comment that many people go with a blank page just to make the browser load quickly. The new start page shows 9 thumbnails of your most visited sites, along with a right column of searches you do often.
Privacy mode - aka "Porn Mode" as the Microsoft version of this feature got dubbed...Google says you can use it to keep gifts a secret
Gears is built into Google Chrome - This adds capabilities like offline access to applications that build in support for it (Gmail has taken forever to add this...you would be able to compose an email even without internet access in Gmail, and then as soon as you get an internet connection it would send)
A kid that was wise beyond his years once said, "Mozilla Firefox is the greatest web browser available!" But tomorrow he might be crying in a corner :)
