This guy put together a medley with what he thinks are the 100 bass lines that every bass player should know. I think that a few should be forever banned and some great ones are missing, but most of them are a spot-on selection. In any case, kudos for his nonstop 13-minute performance.
If you’re determined to catch up on South Park episodes without downloading them, you’d better get used to Hulu — you’ll be using it a lot. The service has just unveiled a deal that gives it exclusive US rights to stream the series’ complete catalog…
Have you ever dropped by the plush hotels of the Venetian, whether it is in Las Vegas or in Macau? Those are certainly 5-star resorts that offer just about any creature comforts imaginable, not to mention having recreated a sense of you being in Venice itself, with a built-in waterway to boot, alongside an actual person rowing a gondola along for added effect. So you just have a swimming pool at home, and would like to add a dash of charm to it for the upcoming pool party. Let the $59.99 Singing Gondolier help you out in this case.
With the Singing Gondolier, your swimming pool will be transformed into an enchanting Venetian canal, as this whimsical pool decoration boasts of a 15″ long gondola that will move around your pool as the gondolier Luciano Poolvarotti keeps you and your guests entertained with a trio of 3 traditional Italian songs. While this isn’t exactly the best lip sync performance, his mouth does move up and down for added effect, running on a quartet of AA batteries. If only he came with solar-powered efficiency as well as a power source alternative.
[ Singing Gondolier adds a dash of charm to your pool copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
Terry Richardson, the prominent photographer who has been accused of sexual harassment by several models, will shoot an entire issue of Playboy, which is set to come out in early 2015.
Richardson previewed some NSFW images from the issue, titled “California Dreamin,'” on his blog Friday.
A Playboy spokeswoman told Jezebel that “Yes, Terry has shot for the magazine many times over the years, and has been a great partner.” As the website notes, not everyone is so eager to embrace Richardson these days; the shoe company Aldo parted ways with him in June as the chorus of complaints grew louder.
Richardson recently defended himself as part of a feature story in New York Magazine that drew plenty of criticism.
What’s so new about The New Phil Hendrie Show, especially if it’s already up to Episode 157 as of Monday this past week? The fact is that Hendrie is now a podcaster as opposed to being a broadcaster, which he was since 1973 when he got his first terrestrial radio gig outside Orlando, Florida.
For the past couple of years, he’s been slicing and dicing the archives of his famed broadcast into podcast-sized pieces but, as of March, he’s washed his hands of the flagging radio biz.
Now he does a morning podcast Monday through Friday, joined by the cast of crazy characters that used to interact with live callers on the air. Folks like Margaret Gray, General Shaw, David G. Hall, and Jay Santos now spend most of their time getting in Phil’s way, it seems, as he tries his best to get through news stories of the day.
In this edition, Hendrie sounded off about last week’s firing of Anthony Santos from the Opie & Anthony Show on Sirius XM, offering some suggestions how Opie could survive by going it alone.
Santos, of the Citizen’s Auxiliary Police, called in to comment on a recent TSA ruling about confiscating cell phones and laptops with dead batteries — but an odd speech impediment kept him from delving too deeply into the subject.
And Don Burman from Channel 19 News called in from Disneyland but was being hassled by people in the park for being a 40-year-old man standing alone and wearing Mickey Mouse ears.
While I miss the fun of Phil bamboozling unsuspecting callers with his amazing ability to be many people at once, the formula works well in this new format, too.
This review originally posted as part of This Week In Comedy Podcasts on Splitsider.com. Marc Hershon is host and executive producer of Succotash, the Comedy Podcast Podcast.
“Because he’s the hero Cleveland deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we’ll hunt him. Because he can take it. Because he’s not our hero. He’s a silent guardian. A watchful protector. A Dark Knight.” – what Dan Gilbert should’ve said in his letter in 2010.
I can hear the cries of euphoria echoing in Los Angeles all the way from Lake Erie. The prodigal son, LeBron James, is returning home to Northeast Ohio, announcing his decision in an essay to Sports Illustrated.
Love him or hate him, LeBron James’s announcement transcends the world of sports. And, when looking at his life and career, it is hard not to think of him as the NBA’s version of Batman.
James, like Bruce Wayne, was born into a city in dire need of a hero. Cleveland needed a symbol of hope just as much as Gotham did. Fans had become so accustomed to seeing their teams on the losing end of such memorable moments as The Drive and The Shot that many wondered if the city was forever cursed when it came to winning a championship.
But when LeBron James was drafted first overall by the Cavaliers in 2003, you saw an instant change in the city’s perception of their team. For the first time in years, there was optimism and a sense of possibility. Cleveland had become a true championship contender in the NBA, something no one had been able to say for almost two decades.
James’s first few years with the Cavaliers were like the early years for Batman. He became more than just a man; he became a symbol of hope and prosperity for the city, and even led the Cavaliers to the NBA Finals in just his fourth season. But as the years passed and Cleveland’s championship drought continued, the pressure began to build.
And then came “The Decision.”
When James announced on national TV that he was taking his talents to South Beach, I immediately envisioned that final scene in The Dark Knight when Batman rode off into the darkness with the Gotham police hot on his trail. James, like Batman, had become a traitor to the city he loved, and the wounds were too deep to heal right away.
It took eight years before Batman returned to the streets of Gotham in The Dark Knight Rises. Eight years of Bruce Wayne having to listen to how terrible Batman was for the city, and how everyone was better off without him.
While James’s absence from Cleveland has only been four years, it has felt like an eternity for his hometown. They watched as James led the Miami Heat to the NBA Finals in four straight seasons. They watched as James lifted two title trophies with the Heat, knowing deep down that those were supposed to be their trophies. They watched James ride through South Beach in victory parades, knowing he should be riding along the shores of Lake Erie. Their hero had left them.
But now, James is returning to the city he once called home. He’s coming back to finish what he started, and as he said in his essay, “My relationship with Northeast Ohio is bigger than basketball. I didn’t realize that four years ago. I do now.”
So while the sports world gathers itself in the wake of James’s announcement, it should be noted that his homecoming does not signify the return of the king.
It is the return of the Dark Knight.
For more great stories, check out The Sports Hero.
GAZA CITY — When Israeli airstrikes hit Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza this week, Sena Alissa held her pregnant belly as blood dripped between her legs. And then, her water broke. Frantic and petrified, her family desperately tried to find someone to drive her to the hospital. They didn’t have a car. But nobody would take her — it was too dangerous, they all said. Three hours later, she made it to the refugee camp hospital, but they didn’t have the capacity to deliver premature babies.
“I was more than terrified,” she says while holding her newborn baby girl in a bed in Gaza City’s struggling al-Shifa hospital, 20 minutes from Nuseirat. “I’m giving birth in war.”
This week, as Hamas fires hundreds of rockets at Israel, and Israel strikes Gaza from land, air and sea, the maternity ward here has been filled with women like Alissa, many of whom are suffering from complications like pre-term labor, miscarriages, and stillbirths brought on by the stress of war. Doctors in southern Israel say women dealing with life under rocket fire are suffering from similar problems.
A woman who goes by Asma rocks her baby boy named Mohsen in al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. She fled airstrikes in her neighborhood while she was pregnant.
Across the hall from Sena and her baby girl, Batoul, is 21-year-old Reema al-Hawaity, also from Nuseirta refugee camp. Eight months pregnant this week, she feared she would lose her baby — and perhaps her own life — when the strikes hit her neighborhood. First came the explosions. Then, her stomach pain. She was two centimeters dilated when she made it to the refugee camp hospital. Now, she’s resting in al-Shifa hospital, suffering from gestational diabetes and with a baby on the way who nurses say will likely come before it should.
Next to al-Hawaity is a young woman who introduces herself as Asma, with a tiny baby cooing and kicking next to her on the rusty hospital bed. “The pain started when the shelling started,” she says meekly. “I was only thinking of the baby.”
An hour after the air strikes began, her family decided to evacuate their house, with 9-months-pregnant Asma in tow. They live right next to the police station — a likely target, they say. The group rushed into the street, splitting into two groups to walk to their nearest relatives’ homes.
“I was so worried I’d lose him,” Asma says. “It felt like our ears would explode with the sound of the explosions.”
When she finally made it to a clinic, doctors induced labor. Asma delivered a healthy baby boy named Mohsen.
Understaffed and running out of both equipment and medicine, al-Shifa hospital is struggling to take care of the pregnant women like Reema and new mothers like Sena and Asma. In many rooms where one or two women would normally be, there are five beds lined up next to each other. With 46 of the hospital’s roughly 150 maternity ward nurses stuck at home or afraid to come to work because of the air strikes, according to staff, the hospital is putting as many women as possible in one room to better look after the patients.
Three babies have died here this week, according to Sumer Suleiman, the maternity ward’s supervising nurse who has worked here for eight years and through seemingly endless war. The trend of early pregnancy and birth complications during fighting is a frequent one, she says.
Just over the border in southern Israel, where rocket sirens now regularly sound, pregnant women are also under threat.
“Patients are reluctant to go to the hospital because every time you go out of your house, you are vulnerable to the missiles,” Dr. Eyal Anteby, the head of obstetrics and gynecology at Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon, southern Israel, told The WorldPost by phone. “We see less patients going to the emergency room. They come late when they are in more advanced stages of labor.”
Anteby says there’s a strong correlation between stress during rocket fire and pre-term labor and other complications, especially in places like Ashkelon, where rocket fire from Gaza is common. According to one study, conducted by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researchers last year, women in Israel exposed to rocket attacks had a 59 percent greater risk of miscarrying compared to women away from rocket fire.
“In the past when the shelling was mostly in Sderot, pregnant women would many times come to Ashkelon, saying they lost the feeling of the baby. It was safer in Ashkelon,” Anteby says.
Sena Alissa holds her newborn baby girl, Batoul, a few hours after delivering her in al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
Like mothers in southern Israel, Sena and other Palestinian mothers here at al-Shifa say they desperately want to stay at the hospital where it is safe. More than 150 Palestinians have been killed, the Associated Press reported Saturday. No Israeli citizens have been killed, largely thanks to the nation’s Iron Done missile interceptor. While Palestinians decry Israel’s bombardment of civilian areas, Israel says Hamas uses civilians as human shields and militants launch rockets from densely populated neighborhoods.
The women at al-Shifa don’t want to take their fragile newborn babies home, where war is inescapable. The morgue downstairs holds the bodies of Palestinians, many of whom are civilians, killed in Israeli strikes this week. And small children, much like their own, are recovering from life-threatening injuries in nearby hospital wards.
“We can’t send them back to their houses,” says Sumer, who is nine months pregnant herself. As she speaks, there is a loud boom in the distance, its sound traveling through the open window. She keeps talking, seemingly unaffected, but places one hand protectively on her round belly.
Abeer Ayyoub contributed reporting from Gaza City.
Common sense and decency seem less and less important to Republicans in the House of Representatives as they continue their shameful conduct toward President Barack Obama for trying to do his job.
Americans are facing chaos in the immigration system, a still-recovering economy, heavy-duty foreign policy issues and many other serious challenges. Yet, the Republicans, and their pitiable leader John Boehner sink to new levels of absurdity by the day. On Thursday, Boehner announced that Republicans intend to sue the President for changes to his signature health insurance law, known as “Obamacare.”
Speaker Boehner has been talking about his plans to sue the President for over a month. He should proceed with caution. The American people are sick and tired of being sick and tired at this “do-nothing” Congress. House leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) lost his party’s primary to a political unknown because he was out of touch with voters in his conservative leaning district in the suburbs of Richmond Virginia. This should be a warning bell for many House Republicans.
The House Rules Committee recently has fallen into line with this sue-the-President scheme by making public a copy of the draft legislation outlining Republican complaints. But where does it stop? Instead of working for the American people as they were elected to do, they are wasting time, money and energy on this kind of nonsense.
The real issue at hand is a simple one: Republicans in Congress simply are not willing to work with President Obama. The President time and time again has extended an olive branch to Speaker Boehner in efforts to build cooperation.
Republican lawmakers say it’s Obamacare that bedevils Congressional cooperation. But wounds run deeper than that. Republicans have been trying to repeal the law for years, claiming it will ruin the country financially and that Americans would refuse to enroll in its coverage. The cynics and critics were wrong. Millions of Americans signed up for Obamacare and the country has moved on with business as usual.
No, this latest fiasco is not about the Affordable Care Act. It is about Midterm elections. Yes, it is about politics, and the reality that Republicans have little progress to report to their constituents. They have little that they accomplished on behalf of the Republican base. They should have thought of that last year while they put their energies blocking any idea the President had to move the country forward instead of doing the business of the people they were elected to serve.
Republican are so desperate they are even speaking of impeaching President Obama. They had better hope they keep their own jobs come November. Meanwhile the president is not sitting on his hands waiting for Speaker Boehner to come to his senses.
I have to commend President Obama for using his executive powers to move the country forward! That’s exactly what he was elected to do. Bravo!
Benj Edwards at The Atlantic just published this beautiful piece about a man’s quest to rebuild Prodigy, the ancient web service dead since 1999. As the net has grown and changed, no doubt you’ve lost a favorite site or two. Say you’ve got a genie and all your other wishes fulfilled. Which website do you revive?
You can pick up a Chromebook for a dirt-cheap $200, if you know where to shop. However, there are now signs that these Google-powered portables could get even cheaper. MediaTek has contributed code to Chromium OS (the base for Chrome OS) for a test…
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
