I am sitting here watching Superbad for like  the 20th time and I decided to comprise my top ten favorite stupid movies.

Before I get to my list, I think it is important that I clarify what I mean by stupid movie.  I don’t like movies that are just stupid and are based only on the merits of being stupid.  I like movies that are borderline slapstick, but not in a Mel Brooks kind of way.  One essential criteria a good stupid movie must have is that it must be quotable.  The plot can be half-retarded (because you never go full retard), the actors can be complete no-names, and the script can be atrocious as long as it has good quotable lines.

And now for my list:

10	9	8
7	6	5
4	3	2
1

And there you have it.

Joe.

Since I was home sick.  Which is extremely sick, because subconsciously I play it up pretty good.  I basically slept the entire day.

When I actually got the energy/motivation/gumption to get out of bed, I watched The Incredible Hulk movie.  I actually liked it.  Mostly, I think, because I didn’t expect it to be any good at all. 

Ed Norton is good even in bad movies, so I had to watch it.  I got inspired to do something that I haven’t done in a very long time.  Draw.

And here is what I came up with.

Not too bad for a rusty hand and a set of five-year-old pencils.

It was relaxing at least.

Jonathan Coulton Fans, Code Monkey has a video

And there you have it.

Joe.

While browsing Facebook the other day I stumbled across an old friend’s profile.  Bryan Poole and I met during high school and we hit it off right away.  Among other things, we started, what we called, a band together named Stumble. 

Bryan and I lost contact with each other about 10 years ago.  Last we saw each other, I visited him with my wife, then girlfriend, in Athens.  He had been playing bass for a band called Elfpower.  He was also delivering pizza as his day job.

Now I find Bryan has been making a living playing in a band.  He currently plays with Of Montreal, but between Elfpower and Of Montreal, he released a solo album:

Amok by The Late BP Helium

So I ordered the CD from Amazon and it arrived today.  While it was ripping, I thumbed through the inserts.  What did I find, but a thank you section that thanks me…

“joe decarlo(stumble)”

I was totally floored as I didn’t have any idea it was in there.

Thanks Bryan.

And there you have it.

So I was listening to Ken Kennedy’s podcast about the Microsoft/Yahoo buyout potential and it inspired me to blog about Amazon’s purchase of Audible.com.  The mega-retailer announced in January that it will acquire the audiobook provider for $300 million dollars.  This is probably a good thing, but let’s look at some of the possibilities that can come of this merger.

• Amazon “gets it” when it comes to DRM.  Amazon MP3 is offering DRM-free, high-quality MP3 music downloads from every label that they support.  Audible, on the other hand, requires each author that wants their book to be distributed by Audible.com to have DRM.  Let’s hope Amazon wins that battle.
• Amazon has name recognition.  Though Amazon has only been around four years longer than Audible (Amazon launched in 1995 and Audible in 1999), Audible is hardly a household name, despite being the one of the largest audiobook retailers in the world.  Just by sake of name, Audible will get more traffic as Amazon Audiobooks than as Audible.com
• Amazon intermixes their audiobook line with all their other products.  One nice thing about Audible is that their entire site is about audiobooks eliminating confusion on what you are buying.  If Amazon decides to integrate the products into their site instead of preserving the Audible.com site, then you will have to filter your results by Audiobook and HOPEFULLY, there would be a way to separate Audiobooks on CD from Audiobook MP3’s
• Amazon has a lot more money than Audible.com.  It took Audible ten years to hit the 45 thousand title mark.  Hopefully, it will take only a fraction of that time for Amazon to reach the 90 thousand mark.
• Amazon includes audiobook titles in their “Better Together” promotions.  “Buy this book with the audiobook today!” 
• Amazon may eventually change Audible’s file format from being a proprietary file format to a standard like MP3.  This would allow any MP3 player to play audiblebooks versus having a supported devices list.

I don’t think that the 250 former Audible.com/new Amazon employees will have a significant impact on the rest of the 17,000 employee base at Amazon.  Amazon’s internal culture is pretty safe from this new external influence.All-in-all, I think this acquirement makes total sense.  When I think of books, I go to Amazon.  It is a logical extension for me to think of Amazon for audiobooks as well.

And there you have it.