USA Today App

A while back I raved about the the NY Times app, and while I still love it, I have to say the USA Today app is starting to get some quality time. The USA Today app loads a lot faster than the NY Times and it has a wider range of stories. Obviously the reporting is not as good, nor as deep. It's like reading the real paper, you get lots of top line info, in short easy to read stories. It also has weather and scores right on the home page, with no intrusive advertising (I am sure that will change).

This is a great free app that is a must have for fans of the newspaper.

Clairvoyant

Everyday you meet interesting people on the bus. Today we got to hear how this lady has visions, like the the lady on the TV show Medium. She has had them her entire life, she wishes she didn't, but what can you do? As proof of her clairvoyance, she offered up this story. When she was in high school, she told her boyfriend he shouldn't take her car because something bad would happen. He did it anyway and he ended up getting arrested. As the story unfolds we find out that he hot wired the car and that he was a drug dealer on his way to make a buy. Seems amazing that this could somehow lead to "something bad happening." I don't have visions, but I can tell you if a drug dealing friend takes my car against my will, there is a pretty strong chance it won't turn out well.

Hey can I borrow your car?

Uh, what are you going to do with it?

Rob a bank.

Uh, you know I am a little clairvoyant and I am having a vision that his ends badly.

Relax, I got it covered.

Super Bowl Commercials

Let's get started with the best Super Bowl commercial for 2010, hands down our Simpson's Coke spot. I heard through the grape vine that this was a difficult spot to produce, but it was well worth it. Even if you are not a huge Simpson's fan, you got to love it. The story was funny and the animation was great. Unfortunately the USA Today Readers Poll did not agree with me, ranking it number 30. They choose the Snickers Betty White spot number one. While I agree it was a very funny spot, I didn't think it was the best spot.

My next favorite ad was a promo for Late Night with Dave Letterman. How he got Jay Leno and Opra to be in the promo is a great story you can read about on USA Today. Jay is a good sport for doing it and Letterman is a genius for conceiving it.

There were also a few too many spots where people were not wearing pants. The Career Builder spot was funny, but the Dockers one was not. What was truly strange is that there were two pantsless spots back to back, could that have been coordinated?

W+K had a total of four spots on the Super Bowl. There were two Coke spots, a Dodge spot, and an EA Dante's Inferno spot. I thought the Dodge spot was funny (as did all the folks at my viewing party), but the NY Times panned it as sexist.

There were way too many Bud Light and Doritos spots for my liking. I didn't think any of them were as good as years past.

The most controversial spot of the year has to be the Tim Tebow Focus on the Family spot. If you hadn't heard about it before the game, you may be wondering what all the fuss is about. The issue is that it is an anti-abortion spot, and this is the first time a network has allowed an advocacy spot on the Super Bowl. To me this is a little taste of what we can expect next election year due to the Supreme Court's ruling, which allows corporations to spend whatever they want on ads. We are going to be inundated and politics are going to get even more nasty.

If you want to judge for yourself you can see all the spots on Spike.com and vote for your top 10.

Super win for Saints

I think this is the first time in my life that I have really cared who wins the the Super Bowl. It has been fun watching the Saints all year, and with Barbara and her family being such big fans, we got our Fleur dis Lis on, and pulled for New Orleans. Not just the football team, but the entire city. As much as I wanted the Saints to win, I was worried about Payton Manning and the Colts. First time Super Bowl teams are 4-15 against teams that have been there before. When the Saints went down 10-0, and they flashed the statistic that winning after being down 10 points would equal the largest Super Bowl comeback in history, I was even more worried.

That worry was for naught as the Saints battled back and took the lead. Then they did what has made them great all season, they picked off Manning and ran it back for a TD. At that point I felt pretty good about the outcome, but it was still an exciting finish. As the Colts were driving with two minutes left, you could see a patented Manning moment coming. Thankfully the Saints held strong and the Bourbon Street camera showed the French Quarter exploding.

Boy I wish I was in New Orleans tonight, it is going to be a great party. Mardi Gras is still a few days away, but I think things are going to get started early.

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

A Confederacy of Dunces is a great book, has an amazing back story and is set in New Orleans, do I need to say anything more? OK, I'll say a little more. John Kennedy Toole wrote a book when he was 16 years old. Nothing happened to it. He went to graduate school and became a professor and wrote another book. Nothing happened to it either. In fact it was rejected by Simon and Shuster because, "it wasn't about anything" (didn't Sienfeld make a lot of money doing nothing?). Over time, Toole became so despondent he quit working, drank heavily and ultimately committed suicide at 31. His mother picked up the torch and kept trying to get the book published. Eleven years later, LSU press published 2500 copies (that are now very valuable) and the book went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981.

Now to the book itself. New Orleans is one of my favorite cities, and this book captures the rhythm and the language of the city better than any other book ever written (and that includes any Tennessee Williams play). You'll meet a lot of weird and wonderful people, such as the eccentric Ignatius Reilly; a man who thinks everyone else in the world pales in comparison to his genius, despite the fact he as only left New Orleans once in his life, and only got as far as Baton Rouge. This book is dark and hilarious and you'll find yourself laughing out loud. One thing is for sure, you will never walk through New Orleans' French Quarter and see a Lucky Dog cart again without thinking of this book.

Avatar in the Amazon

You may remember that I took a trip to the Amazon rain forest last year where I got to spend the night with an Achuar family. It was an amazing experience and I learned a lot about what native peoples are up against in their daily challenges to protect their way of life. It was also a very primative place, where people live off the land and survival is not assured. They had no electricity, no running water and no bathrooms.

So, what happens when you take a group of these folks out of the rain forest and into the big city to watch (in many cases) their first movie? And what if that movie is Avatar, a 3-D extravaganza about saving a native people's way of life? You get some interesting reactions. Check out the full story on NPR.

The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker has been getting a lot of Oscar buzz. It is one of the only movies that beat out Avatar in any award show this year. Another strange connection to Avatar? The director Kathryn Bigelow was once married to James Cameron. OK, enough with the trivia. This is not a trivia inducing movie. It is a super serious and intense movie.

At two hours running time it will leave you a little worn out. The film begins with Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner) joining an Army demolition team in 2004 Iraq. The team only has 36 days left on their rotation and James is seriously jeopardizing their chances of getting home alive. James is a cowboy and an adrenaline junkie. He lives for the thrill of defusing bombs. He is a complicated character and The Bigelow does a great job bringing him to life without too many of the cliches we have grown accustomed to in war movies. She also does a great job of getting us inside the life of a soldier in Iraq. There are no overt political statements, but you can easily come to your own conclusions of whether or not anything we are doing over there makes sense.

The Hurt Locker is now avaialble on DVD and On Demand. I doubt it will win the Oscar for best picture, but it is in the top three.