Karate Depot, for your karate needs

Hey guys, I ordered some prop guns for the show I'm in (more on that in a few days) from this website, KarateDepot.com, and now I'm going to get a sweet t-shirt for mentioning them. Action shots to follow.

Is that Lindsay Lohan or a drunk baby?

Oh lordy lordy lordy. In case you didn't turn on anything electronic this week, Lindsay Lohan is suing eTrade for $100 million dollars, Dr. Evil-style, because she finds an eponymous milkaholic baby in their commercial slanderous. I mean, really, everything you need is contained right there. Describing the story is hilarious enough. But I'd hardly say my job would be done then, so explore with me, won't you?

That's right. Lindsay Lohan finds that she has too much in common with a slutty baby who drinks too much milk, who is also named Lindsay. So she's suing for $100 MILLION DOLLARS. According to her lawyer, "Everyone's talking about it and saying it's Lindsay Lohan." Holy shit, now they are!

I can only assume that astronomical amount was decided upon to help recover the damage done by this commercial to Miss Lohan's reputation. I'd venture out on a limb and say that maybe positioning yourself in the public consciousness so that a vapid, substance-abusing baby calls to mind your leathery freckled cigarette-stained flesh has already done far more damage to your reputation than any commercial possibly could. And your lawyer isn't doing you any favors when he tells the public that surely the first person they thought of was his client when they saw this stupid baby.

You want to protect your reputation? Eat. Show up to work on time. Stop making such awful movies. Don't tell people you've elevated yourself to single-name status. And don't sue someone over a BABY COMMERCIAL.

Sometimes, people behave in a way that is so compatible with their stereotype that you can't even believe it's real. Am I right, closeted Republican congressmen?

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2010 Oscars; or, How to Buy a Statue

The Oscars are upon us once again, and of course the story this year is the broadened Best Picture category with ten nominees. Ostensibly an attempt to let audience favorites have a go alongside fiscally microscopic films like An Education, this means Avatar or District 9 could feasibly take home a statue. What this really means is Avatar will have justified its Bolivian GDP of a budget when it inevitably wins Best Picture.

The awards have little to do with artistic merit anyway. Just like the congressional candidate with the best ideas doesn't necessarily get elected, the "best" actor (whatever that means) doesn't always win the award. It's the person with the best studio campaign behind them. Of course, campaign in the wrong way, or make it too obvious that you're campaigning *ahem Mr. Hurt Locker producer* and you shoot your team in the collective foot.

I've gotta say, I'm a bit worried here. I see this as the beginning of a trend in which the year's top grosser predictably wins Best Picture, which not only takes the fun out of it but means a lot of really shitty movies will win. This all comes a year too late anyway, since Dark Knight is one of the few top earners I could imagine legitimately earning the award. Do you really want Transformers 8 to be in the running in 2023? Do you want Michael Bay to ever be nominated?

And all this is being done to get more people to watch the broadcast. This logic escapes me, because no one watches the show for the awards anyway. The majority watch for the red carpet hoohah and to see if anyone screws up their speech. You don't see after-shows of film buffs analyzing who won and why; you see E! breaking down every single outfit caught on film, and who Angelina Jolie managed to have an awkward encounter with this year (I'm looking at you, Christopher Minz-Plasse).

I say, stop broadcasting it altogether. The awards have nothing to do with us at home. They're about the honorees. If you're not in that theatre, you're not affected. So let them have their moments, and as a replacement we can just have a red carpet parade. Stars make a two-hour trek down the carpet from one limo to another in a constant cycle. Put them on display. Ask them awkward questions. E! correspondents act like they're pals with them. Then they go home.

How absurd is it to rank art in the first place? You don't see awards for "Best Oil on Canvas of the Year," or "Best Bronze Sculpture." Could you imagine? "This year's Achievement in Pretension goes to Gabriel Orozco, for his 'Four Yogurt Caps on the Walls' exhibit." Which by the way, fuck you Mr. Orozco.

Maybe Leno Gets It

Jay Leno returns to your grandparents' TVs this week at 11:35 EST, and something about his lineup makes me think that maybe, just maybe, he understands how unpopular he is right now and he's totally running with it.

In week one we see actors like Jamie Foxx, we see Olympic athletes, no surprises. But we also see Sarah Palin, Brett Favre, and the cast of Jersey Shore in a very special Jaywalking segment. Who's going to come on next week? Jon Gosselin? John Mayer? That Russian mulleted fancylad who keeps bitching about his silver figureskating medal?

Seriously, Palin and Favre aren't doing anything promotion-worthy right now, and the Jersey Whores seem to be winding down the publicity tour that took them to such incongruous places as Ellen, The View, and a community college, so what else could explain their presence on Chinny McBobblehead's Lukewarm Talk Hour? Is he getting notes on douchebaggery? Learning how to alienate the most people in the shortest amount of time? I think he sees the picture we've painted of him, and he's saying "You want it? You got it."

Jay Leno is giving us, not the talk show host we need, but the talk show host we deserve.