Thursday, June 15, 2006

The BEST MOVIE AD EVER!

I’d like to acknowledge and celebrate my first unsolicited 100% legitimate BlogAd ever! And the best thing about it is, I’d love to see this movie!

It’s exactly the kind of movie-going I miss; a small quirky fun gay summer movie for Pride. If I were in New York I’d be there TOMORROW! (Despite the lackluster Blade review. Here’s the trailer and clips.)

On the other hand I do have to admit that even though I’ve already won the game I have my own mostly unfabulous social life right here in Middle Georgia! I guess I’ll just have to put it on my NetFlix que.

LATER: E -GADS! I have unwittingly offended MY FIRST ADBLOGS ADVERTISER EVER! I apparently completely forgot that I had a previous advertiser; and he was ever so generous in his comments (below). Is it any wonder I’ve had only two paid AdBlogs advertisers in 3 months???

I hope you will all run out and buy Still awfully fond of Nanny on your way to the theater today. Or you can download it here. Ian, how can I make it up to you???

Santorum’s paradise

That’s what Andrew Sullivan calls the Nigeria we’ll see if the campaign to criminalize homosexuality succeeds:

Section 7 of the proposed law, pioneered and supported by Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola, states the following:

* Registration of gay organizations by the Nigerian government is prohibited.
* “Publicity, procession and public show of same sex amorous relationship” in the media is prohibited.
* Gay organizations are prohibited, as is “procession or meetings, publicity and public show of same sex amorous relationship directly or indirectly in public and in private”. Violators are subject to 5 years’ imprisonment.

Much more here.

I’ll use the opportunity to quote again the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, John Bryson Chane, writing in the WaPo last February:

Surprisingly, few voices—Anglican or otherwise—have been raised in opposition to the archbishop. When I compare this silence with the cacophony that followed the Episcopal Church’s decision to consecrate the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, a gay man who lives openly with his partner, as the bishop of New Hampshire, I am compelled to ask whether the global Christian community has lost not only its backbone but its moral bearings. Have we become so cowed by the periodic eruptions about the decadent West that Archbishop Akinola and his allies issue that we are no longer willing to name an injustice when we see one?

I also feel compelled to ask the archbishop’s many high-profile supporters in this country why they have not publicly dissociated themselves from his attack on the human rights of a vulnerable population. Is it because they support this sort of legislation, or because the rights of gay men and women are not worth the risk of tangling with an important alliance?

What’s a portal?

I keep thinking that “portal” is soo 1996. Past. Over. Kaput. A has been that never was. I was excited about them when Jason McCabe Calacanis was writing about them at Silicon Alley Reporter.

I’m not now. Jason apparently is; he’s building a new AOL portal:

AOL TODAY WILL RELAUNCH NETSCAPE.COM as a collaborative news portal along the lines of the popular Digg.com. Weblogs co-founder Jason Calacanis, who joined AOL last year, will head the project.

Similar to Digg, the new Netscape site invites users to submit news stories that they think are noteworthy, and to vote on them; the most popular stories will be given prominent placement on the site. Netscape additionally will include a social networking component, providing users with their own pages where they can share articles they find intriguing with others.

But--in a twist absent from Digg--AOL has hired a team of bloggers and editors, which it calls “anchors,” to follow up on select stories with further reporting. For instance, the AOL anchors might return to sources and pose follow-up questions, or expand on a piece by adding more information about the subject.

The requisite Jupiter quote:

“They’re definitely carving out new territory for themselves,” [senior analyst Joe] Laszlo said..."The new Netscape is probably going to be a pioneer.”

Definitely probably.

I’m pretty jaded about the “readers vote on” notion of “collaboration.” The whole portal concept has to be re-invented, the way “community” has become “social networking.” There may well be something really new here, but I not seeing it.

RoboCup 2006

My kind of sporting event. Endgadget:

Human footballers aren’t the only ones in Germany getting a little bit of lovin’ this time of year. More than 400 teams from 36 countries have shown up for the annual RoboCup, which pits robot against robot in soccer matches across 11 leagues. The goal, as always, is to have a humanoid robot team capable of beating the human World Cup champs in 2050, but right now a lot of the robots are just happy to stand up. Current favorites in the humanoid competition is a team from Japan, while the returning champs from Germany are expected to do well in the four-legged league. Live commentary for some matches will be provided by Sango and Ami, two robots from Carnegie Mellon who explain rules, analyze fouls and call out the goals with their very own “personalities.” No word if former star RoboVie-V will be making an appearance among the robot horde, but the real question is: can they dance like Peter Crouch?

Here are photos from CNet.