Pop Culture & Current Events

eBooks, News & Features April 27, 2012

Ellen Reads from ’50 Shades of Grey’

If you follow pop culture and popular books at all, you have heard something about the novel 50 Shades of Grey. If not, I’ll catch you up quickly: it was a Twilight fan-fiction which gained interest from publishers but needed a change of characters, which basically puts a young college student and a rich older man together … but rather than vampires and werewolves we have whips and chains. In fact, Christian Grey makes young Anastasia Steele sign a contract allowing him to subject her to his every BDSM whim. And if you don’t know what BDSM is … chances…

News & Features April 20, 2012

Boston’s Fenway Park Celebrates 100 Years of Baseball Traditions

Even as the world was still reeling from the sinking of the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic, a new era dawned in Boston, and in sports history. On April 20, 1912 Fenway Park opened to the public with a capacity of 35,000 seats … and the Boston Red Sox beat the New York Highlanders in an extra-innings thriller to launch the storied baseball stadium. At this point, Fenway Park is the oldest professional baseball stadium. Chicago’s Wrigley Field is the only other ‘classic’ park remaining. It is also one of the most famous venues in all of sports, with many legendary moments transpiring…

Music Diary, News & Features April 19, 2012

Music as Art … Sheet Music Art, That Is!

An artistic duo called ‘People Too’ from Novabrinsk in Russia are known for their amazing papercraft that seeks to bring small scenes to life, but apparently they can also bring sheet music to life as well! We all know that music is art, and therefore sheet music contains art … but it is amazing when the sheet music ITSELF becomes art! The site linked below has more than a dozen examples of great art done in between the stanzas – definitely check it out. Take a look at this one! Head to the site and check out all of them!…

Music Diary April 18, 2012

RIP Dick Clark, Timeless Host and Breaker of Boundaries

Although my kids will sadly remember Dick Clark from his post-stroke days, struggling for coherence alongside Ryan Seacrest, he was much more than that in a career that cut across 8 decades. The Dick Clark I grew up with was a force of nature – he started well before my time as the man who brought rock’n’roll to the mainstream, spent 31 years as the host of the amazing American Bandstand, started an empire including American Music Awards, the Pyramid game shows, Bloopers, and so on. And of course he made New Year’s Eve a television event with Dick Clark’s…

Gear Bits April 18, 2012

The Amazing Story of the First Woman to Officially Run the Boston Marathon

It is hard to think that within my life there was a time when women were essentially forbidden to run a marathon – yet the image above is one of those magical moments caught on film. It shows 20-year old Kathrine Switzer as the first officially entered woman in the Boston Marathon (Roberta Gibb ran as a renegade the year before). And the image shows marathon organizer Jock Semple chasing Switzer and attacking her, reportedly shouting “Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers.” The image also shows a number of men helping Switzer hold off…

News & Features April 13, 2012

Hilariously Effective Nike ‘I Would Run to You’ Commercial

How often do you see a full 2.5-minute commercial that even as it is obviously selling a brand, makes you stop and fully engage in the story? Well, this new commercial for Nike featuring two lovers who find themselves across the country and missing one another is cute, endearing, and hilarious. It is a great story … and well worth watching and sharing! Here is the description: Nike and W+K Portland put a romantic twist on running, with this 2:30 video about two lovers running across to country to see each other, directed by Rattling Stick’s Ringan Ledwidge. Promoting the…

Gear Bits April 10, 2012

Frank Warren’s TED Talk on Half a Million Secrets

There is not a Sunday morning that goes by where I don’t check out the latest offerings from PostSecret, a project started after its creator, Frank Warren, had a dream while visiting Paris in 2003. The idea behind the site is that people send in their secrets anonymously, on 4×6 postcards that they have created themselves. Senders are told to “Reveal anything – as long as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before.” The beauty of Frank’s project is that sometimes the secrets shared are secrets that could be yours, or they are secrets that will relate…

Editorials April 9, 2012

Ashley Judd Eviscerates the Gossip Industry

Gossip can be a very cruel phenomenon. There is reality, and then there is the truth according to viral videos, Facebook, Us Weekly, and the E! Network. Just this past weekend Sarah and I were in the grocery store, and she commented that the headlines screaming from the checkout magazines were just out of control and invasive. Did it really matter whether Kim Kardashian cheated on her (soon to be ex) husband? Do we really need to know the second Prince William and his wife get pregnant? So it makes me very happy to see a different kind of article…

Editorials April 7, 2012

How the Helicopter Parents Stole Easter

Even though it has been 7 years, I remember it as if it was yesterday. My wife and I were Cub Scout den leaders for each of our kids, and we thought that a cool spring event would be an Easter Egg hunt. We had cleared it with all parents, and all of the kids were excited about the event. We allowed siblings to be involved, and my wife and I stayed up late packing eggs with candy so there would be about 12 or so eggs per child. We informed the kids and parents that each child should get…

Gear Bits, News & Features April 5, 2012

Nyan Cat Gets an ‘Adventure’ for Its First Birthday

Hard to believe that the meme that is Nyan Cat is only one year old today! It is a sign of the fast-moving times that these things go from nothing to everywhere to nothing again so quickly! Here are the basics from Wikipedia: Nyan Cat is the name of a YouTube video uploaded in April 2011, which became an Internet meme. The video merged a Japanese pop song with an animated cartoon cat with the body of a Pop-Tart, flying through space, and leaving a rainbow trail behind it. The video ranked at number 5 on the list of most…

Music Diary March 31, 2012

Great Music Videos from Before MTV

Image courtesy of ICanHasCheezburger Many folks think that the birth of the music video can be traced to the launch of MTV … but that really doesn’t make sense when you think about it. I mean, even knowing that MTV started as a small local station before transitioning to a major cable network … how would they have established themselves without existing material? The reality is that there have been music videos produced since the early days of sound-based video. With the advent of television and its popularity in 1950s, we started to see promotional videos attached to network shows…

Editorials March 26, 2012

Apparently Some Critics Want to Call Her ‘Fat’niss

My household has been abuzz after all of us finally saw The Hunger Games this weekend – my wife and I and older son went together on Friday, and younger son went to a birthday party featuring heading to the movie on Saturday. There were a load of highlights – and of course a number of ‘that’s not how they did it in the book’ nitpicks – but overall we loved the movie and thought the casting was key to the artistic success of bringing the first book in the series to the screen. We knew Josh Hutcherson from ‘Zathura’…

Gear Bits March 26, 2012

The Hunger Games, Hit or Hype?

image courtesy THG – The Hunger Games Blog at http://thg-thehungergames.blogspot.com/ It seems that everywhere you turn people are talking about the release of the feature film The Hunger Games this week. Here at Gear Diary, we are the same way and we have been burning up the wires talking about it too! Some have read the books, some not. Some think it’s all hype, some not. In the end, we decided to share with you our thoughts going into the release of this high-profile film! Read on…

News & Features March 25, 2012

Miso Media is the Latest ‘Shark Tank’ Attention, um, Seeker

A couple of weeks ago we wrote about Scott Jordan of SCOTTEVEST appearing on the ABC ‘reality investment’ show ‘Shark Tank’. It was an episode my family had been anticipating all season for a few reasons: Scott Jordan has worked with Dan and Judie in the past, I have several SCOTTEVETST items and LOVE them all, and finally because Scott appeared in all of the previews to be a total arrogant confrontational jerk on the show which we figured meant some good theater … and we weren’t disappointed. What my family remarked on, which has been discussed here and pretty…

Gear Bits, Music Diary March 25, 2012

Spin Lists the 30 Most Hated Bands!

Everyone has a list of bands or artists they find over-rated or annoying … but there are also a few that transcend that to be truly HATED. There are a number of reasons – pulling away someone from another group, too much media attention, getting awards or album sales by ripping off others, and countless others. Spin magazine compiled a list of hated bands, and you can head here to check it all out. But you might not want to … because they have spread it out with only TWO bands per page! That’s right – they spread 30 bands…

Gear Bits, News & Features March 24, 2012

Adult TV Ads Poke Fun at Adult Movie Tropes!

You don’t even have to be a fan of adult movies to know about some of the clichéd plots – a pizza delivery guy comes to the door, and a beautiful woman answers and the next thing you know … well … Anyway, over at AdWeek they have a look at commercials made for the Canadian Adult station ‘Amour’. The spots cannot (obviously) use X-rated content, but still need to lure customers to check out the station. Here is the run-down: Doing ads for adult-television networks—not an easy job. You can’t use the channel’s content, for one thing. Yet Amour,…

Gear Bits March 23, 2012

Businessweek Looks at Absurd Slogan Trademarks

I love Bloomberg Businessweek because they have a sense of humor. They cover serious subjects, and then they run with the fun stuff but with a straight face. Hence their very amusing analysis of which catchphrases are trademarked and therefore off-limits (hint: apparently). Seriously. Check out their sample of what phrases have been legally protected: Barbarian Group: “It’s gonna be awesome” Great Clips: “It’s gonna be great” Amscan Holdings: “Who you gonna be?” Bank of New York Mellon: “We should talk” Physicians Mutual Insurance: “Maybe we should talk” STG Marketing: “Who’s got your stuff?” General Mills (GIS): “How do you…

Music Diary, News & Features March 22, 2012

Katy Perry Plays Rapper in N*ggas In Paris

The thought of Katy Perry singing in general doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in me – she has about a 6 note range, requires all-too-obvious auto-tuning, and in live performances is a poster child for pre-recorded tracks. As for her rhythm … Well, she really can’t dance and certainly can’t sing and dance simultaneously. So again, not a lot of confidence there. Let us just say she is at her best walking around the stage singing along with a pre-recorded track in a way-too-short and way-too-tight dress. So how is it that I just watched her doing a cover of Jay…

Gear Bits, Music Diary March 20, 2012

The Doors Release New Video for L.A. Woman 40th Anniversary

No, you didn’t misread … the Doors, whose lead singer died more than 40 years ago, have released a new music video. No, it isn’t a reforming of the band with some American Idol alum or anything like that. According to the info for the video: Professional skateboarders Kenny Anderson, Alex Olson, and Braydon Szafranski take viewers on a “Doors-centric” skateboarding tour of Los Angeles. If you head to their Facebook page you get this description: The Doors are thrilled to premiere a brand new video for “L.A. Woman!” The video was directed by two-time Emmy® nominee Matt Goodman and…

Gear Bits, Music Diary March 19, 2012

Today Marks the 30th Anniversary of the Death of Randy Rhoads

There are so many tales of artists lost too young, but way too many of them are more cautionary tales of self-destruction and failing to heed the constant pleas and attempts of others to save them – such as almost the entire ’27 club’. Those are tragic in their own right, but there are also losses of artists through disease or accidents. I always think of the young loss of Scott LaFaro in 1961, or the infamous ‘Day the Music Died’ plane crash … but today marks the 30th anniversary of the death of Ozzy Osborne guitarist Randy Rhoads in…

Editorials March 19, 2012

Do Movies Like Dr. Seuss’ ‘The Lorax’ and ‘Wall-E’ Make a Difference?

My family went to see The Lorax in 3D yesterday. It took a little bit of convincing for Kev’s almost-13-year-old to get into the spirit of seeing a “kid’s cartoon”, as she was much more interested in seeing Eddie Murphy’s 1000 Words [not happening], but the 9-year-old was eager enough. Mentioning that the movie was done by the creators of Despicable Me (a DVD go-to favorite of theirs) got everyone in a good mood, and we were off! Many of you will remember the Dr. Seuss book of the same name that this movie was based upon, but just in case you missed it — here’s…