Jobber of the Week

With all the hurricanes in Florida, how come the theme parks never blow away?

Ads for this Looney Tunes movie are all over the taxi cabs in Las Vegas right now. The amusing thing is that they're parodies of the actual Vegas showroom programs. For instance, there's a Siegfried & Roy knock-off called "Bugstweed & Duck" with Bugs & Daffy in the same pose, same outfit, and a logo in the same font and everything. A Blue Man Group one too with blue-faced Porkys that says: "Blue Ham Soup, Now Served Nightly." This has nothing to do with Fuck Goldberg, but I'll be ranting a lot about him soon anyway.

Well, it's good to see you finally adopted this attitude. Don't have that far to go.

Great... Uh..... Contribution.

More on the Supreme Court's "Copyright is not Theft" thing: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getc...l=473&invol=207

Oh, well this is the new one. That article is right underneath the Al-Jazeera stuff on their front page.

You mean the one that shows him at 49%??? http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,97174,00.html

Already a thread in Movies & DVD, and a Johnny Cash thread in Music. Let's try and keep it all over in there?

Oy, he didn't last very long.

No it isn't. Supreme Court said so. Is it illegal, immoral, etc? Yes. Actually able to be defined as stealing? No. Why? The only losses are on paper. A potential sale is simply potential and doesn't have any real worth. However, copyright violation is copyright violation. It's still not the same thing as stealing in all legal definition. How about this? The RIAA is the largest vertical monopoly since Carnegie Steel in the early 1900s. They are controlling everything from the production to putting it on the shelves, and there is no opposition. The RIAA actually ruins competition by being a middleman of all the labels. Without the RIAA in place, the actual labels would have to compete and would result in lower costs for consumers. Organizations like the RIAA go against almost every rule of successful Capitalism. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c.../11/MN12066.DTL "Lawsuits on 12-year-old kids for downloading music, duping a mother into paying a $2,000 settlement for her kid?" said rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy. "Those scare tactics are pure Gestapo." "File sharing is a reality, and it would seem that the labels would do well to learn how to incorporate it into their business models somehow," said genre- busting DJ Moby in a post on his Web site. "Record companies suing 12-year-old girls for file sharing is kind of like horse-and-buggy operators suing Henry Ford." Artists are feeling the downturn in sales, too. "My record royalties have dropped 80 percent since 1999," said Steve Miller, whose greatest hits album has been a perennial best-seller since its 1978 release. "To me, it's one of the weirdest things that's ever happened to me because people act like it's OK. " Recording artists have watched their record royalties erode over the past few years ("My Van Halen royalties are history," said vocalist Sammy Hagar), but, in fact, few musicians earn the bulk of their income from record sales. "Bruce Springsteen probably earned more in 10 nights at Meadowlands last month than in his entire recording career," said rocker Huey Lewis. Many artists painted the record industry as a bloated, overstuffed giant with too many mouths to feed and too many middlemen to pay, selling an overpriced, often mediocre product. "They have all these abnormal practices that keep driving the price up," said Gregg Rollie, founding member of Santana and Journey. "People think musicians make all that money, but it's not true. We make the smallest amount." The RIAA did not initiate these lawsuits to defend artists' rights, the musicians say, but to protect corporate profits. "For the artists, my ass," said Draiman. "I didn't ask them to protect me, and I don't want their protection." So let's pretend something. A person crawls in through the window of an empty hotel room and spends the night in it. He doesn't mess the beds, doesn't touch the mini-bar, doesn't harm a thing. He leaves in the morning before the housekeeping comes. Is that stealing? What precisely is stolen? This is the kind of thing we're talking about. You're under no legal obligation to buy a movie ticket to get into a movie. But the movie theater can excercise their right to throw you out. A movie ticket is not so much a license as it is a proof of purchase like what is on your cereal box and other goods. The hotel example is trespassing on private property, but is it theft? No. They could come out with new technology that is more copy-proof than this. Check out what the movie industry does: They haven't been suing individual downloaders. They've been putting out feelgood "don't download movies" ads while shutting down the people who are responsible: the groups video cam'ing the movies in the theaters and the sites that distribute them to the public. Or, the more likely scenario, they die like the gigantic dinosaur that simply grew too huge, ate everything in it's habitat, and is trying desperately to survive. The music industry has a whole lot of other incomes like tours and whatnot, but price fixing CDs is an easier way to make money for an organization that large. The MPAA is playing it smart. They will keep movie trading down to a minimum of those "in the know" who are willing to play the cat & mouse game, while the RIAA continues to act like a battleship that knows it's sunk and is firing all it's cannons simply because it can.

None of these buildings serve an economic function, other than tourism.

WHATWHATWHATWHATWHATWHATWHATWHATWHATWHATWHATWHAT WHATWHATWHATWHATWHATWHATWHATWHATWHATWHATWHATWHAT Pfft. Color me not interested.

From IGN Insider's Mail Bag: It's because of advertising that I tried a McGriddle. They are awesome! Without money you wouldn't be the coolest (best) game site on the web. And the effect is McDonalds gets their's too. Keep up the good work! All of ya. Oh. my. God. I hope you got a great deal of money from McDonalds. They should have paid you a mind-bending amount to so completely trash your front page. I'm now frightened to go to any other part of the site... I seriously hope that this new McLayout for your site is some sort of joke. Do you have any idea what a terrible company McDonalds is? I realize its very popular in American society today to care more about dollar signs than social/environmental issues, but come on! McDonalds? Why not give out a free WalMart gift card with every subscription and be done with it? I personally will never subscribe to a site that so blatantly allies itself with such an evil and greedy corporation. While social consciousness may not be a dominant trait among gamers, I think more people care about this sort of thing than may be apparent. seriously... are you trying to piss me off, cancel my insider and never come to your site again? the over-the-top-ness of the whole thing is just insane. lose it fast Fran responds: IGN has advertisements. This is not a new thing. It's not new that we have page wraps, either. From Coke to Magic: The Gathering advertisers have begun to seek more aggressive means to reach our audience. Just because McDonalds is the big, bad wolf out there doesn't mean everyone needs to become so sensitive about the issue. I hate McDonalds food for the most part. But every day I see the billboards, I see the TV commercials, and I see the Internet ads. I see them for Starbucks. I see them for Gap. I see them for iPod. This is advertising, folks. If you don't like McDonalds, it's convenient to think that the entire world can turn a blind eye to them, but this is not reality. McDonalds peddles food -- not kiddy porn, guns, or deadly drugs. Selective advertising isn't a logical thing: "I will advertise for Target's music section because they sell CDs, but I will not advertise for Apple Music Store because it's not secure enough and thus they inadvertently support piracy." Anyhow. I dislike McDonald's just as much as the next person, but unless IGN can find another stream of revenue as big as advertising, you're probably going to see plenty of ads for movies, cars, or other products you may not be interested in. Get used to it. Stop your bellyachin'. For the record, I do like McDonalds for breakfast once in a blue moon. I tried a McGriddle. To sweet for me. I'll stick with the McMuffins.

Well, it sounds better than the SUVs and McDonalds arguement, but it winds up meaning about the same. We were not attacked for anything we did or are. We were attacked because those who attacted us are intolerant shitheads who are the biggest scum of the earth this side of Hitler. What WAS the first Al-Qaeda attack ever, anyway?

Marney: Right on. I'm just trying to give the feelings I'm going through. Like I said, over here along this entire coastline thoughts on terrorism are a lot more subtle because it really hasn't "hit home" like it does in NY, DC, etc. That and I myself spend 364 days of the year criticizing the War On Terror and the all too sappy "9/11 Never Forget Let's Roll" stuff that has permeated our society. But that isn't appropriate today. I shall sit back, shut up, hang the flag outside, and go back to reading "Why America Slept" and hope that a tragedy like this doesn't happen again. (P.S. Are they ever going to make this a federal holiday already or not?)

Although the Wall Street Journal's opinion page lashed out at people for not holding 9/11 in the same reverence as they did in the past, I think we've made a lot of progress this year. Last year's 9/11 was far more disturbing. If a solemn memorial could ever be hyped and hooplah'd, the networks found a way to do it last year with their neverending documentarys and memorials. It's truly too bad what happened to those 3,000 folks, I wish I could say or do more, but being a non-religious man on the other side of the continent, I guess I'll post this link and leave it at that. 9/11 is a day to remember. 9/12 is a day to let your life move on, for if you dwell in the past too long then the terrorists have got what they wanted.

Don't worry. Last year every site from 411 to the actual ticketmaster page itself listed it. As for me, I gave up on going. Too fucking expensive, likely to be a let-down, and I don't like the surroundings. I would prefer never to go to NYC for anything in my life if I could bear it.

Jesus fuck, I never noticed every stock I have watched on my homepage went down today. There's gotta be another reason than just this. I can understand the tourism-based companies taking slight hits, but satelite technology?

Damnit, that's what I wanted. Not my shitty ass blue (wtf?) uninflatable Ghetto Slide for the poor parents.

I had some kind of blue slip and slide ripoff when I was a kid. It got wet but it didn't have any kind of method for inflation. So basically you dropped yourself onto the hard ground covered with a cold, wet surface.

No one cent show for us DirecTV peeps, unfortunately.

This reminds me of an LL Cool J song: Osama: Don't call it a comeback! Omar: He's been there for years! Osama: Rockin my peers and puttin suckas in fear/ Makin the tears rain down like a mon-soon/ Listen to the plane go boom! Hopefully he disappears again about as quickly as LL's career. -JotW Bush: Cabnet! Powell: WHAT! Bush: Cabnet! Condi: WHAT! Bush: I'm ready! Both: We're ready! Bush: I think I'm gonna bomb a TOWN! Rumsfeld: GET DOWN!

They tried, but it's not that easy. An article on the whole attempt is at: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.02/kazaa.html Kazaa is all over the fucking globe, including a few microscopic countries that simply don't listen to claims of US copyright violations. It's simply easier to make a few examples out of Average Joes and hope the rest bend eventually.

HHH has political clout but nobody's actually seen him sit and refuse to job to guys, only assume it. Goldberg has Creative Control and has only started selling now that Steroidia is his opponent. HHH usually looks weak until the night of the PPV. Goldberg never looks weak unless the numbers are drastically uneven. Neither guy is over without substantial help like Ric Flair or piped chants. Goldberg can't help getting the fuck booed out of him at every big match. HHH is a shitty worker. Goldberg has actually ended careers. I predict a third man runs in and costs HHH the belt, so we can have this go on to Survivor Series.

I believe there's a 30 day policy on most this stuff.