Daily Archives: February 27, 2011

9 posts

Liveblogging the Academy Awards

Welcome to the liveblog of the 2011 Oscars award show! It’s Missing Peace, Dancing Queen, and 2/3 of Ms. Anthropy here with your Academy Awards coverage. While we are excited about the show and have been making  our picks for the winners all week, we have to admit that the red carpet is what we get most excited about.

This year, the Academy Awards will be co-hosted by James Franco and Anne Hathaway, or Francaway, as we’ve dubbed them.  We hope they re-enact this. Continue reading

Liveblogging the Oscars Red Carpet!

Welcome to the liveblog of the 2011 Oscars Red Carpet! It’s Missing Peace, Dancing Queen, and 2/3 of Ms. Anthropy here with your Academy Awards coverage. While we are excited about the show and have been making  our picks for the winners all week, we have to admit that the red carpet is what we get most excited about.  The action starts on E! with live red carpet coverage at 6 ET/3 PT and moves to ABC when the ceremony begins at 8 ET/5 PT and at that point, we will move to another post because we have so much to say about everything Oscars! Continue reading

Life, Death and Violence: A Study of February 26-27

Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. What the hell is going on? This is what you’re saying. We know it’s what you’re saying because we can read your minds here at Life, Death and Violence, your #1 source for poor research and bad jokes about Joseph Gordon Levitt:

Joseph Gordon Levitt walked into a bar. He woke up a week later in the hospital.

JGL Immediately After He Walked Into That Bar

 

#Cracktalk has returned, but we lost a day, so we must make it up. We must avenge Friday by talking about Saturday and its holier than thou sister Sunday. Are you ready for the weekend? It’s basically over already, so, whatever. Who cares. Let’s get to it, little birds. Welcome to Video Weekends.

LIFE!

(If it was warmer, we’d take you to the zoo because that’s a weekend thing to do)
  • 272: Constantine the Great: He had a city named after him. Let’s hear about it:

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  • 1926: HM: He had amnesia and could learn new skills but not remember learning them. That’s weird. Here’s a skill we all can learn:

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  • 1928: Anatoli Filipchenko: Cosmonaut. Let’s learn about Apollo/Soyuz:

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  • 1932: Johnny Cash: He sang songs. Let’s listen:

 

DEATH!

(If it was summer, we’d go to the beach. It’s winter though and that’s a bummer)
  • 1892: Louis Vuitton: This dead guy’s stuff is liked by this living guy:

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  • 1993: Lillian Gish: Roll the tapes:

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  • 1998: Ted Schultz: Economist. Let’s learn about the economy:

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  • 2008: Dick Fletcher: We always preferred Weather Girls to Weathermen:

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VIOLENCE!

(If it was spring, we’d probably be cleaning)
  • You want violence?  Boom. Bang. Here:


 

OTHER NEAT THINGS THAT HAPPENED!

(Let’s just go to the arcade and play Dance Dance Revolution, okay? Meet you in 20)
  • 1815: Napoleon escapes Elba. Here’s why he was there:

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  • 1919: It’s official. The Grand Canyon is a national park. Here it is:

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  • 1974: People Magazine is published. Here’s our favorite People from 1974:

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  • 1986: The Senate starts televising debates. Here’s some early Senate footage:


 

 

We have an Oscar party to get ready for. Bye. See you on Monday for a real one of these.

Recipe Sunday: Double Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

Today, I want to share with you one of my favorite recipes. It’s super easy and makes a great gift, but it’s perfectly O.K. not to share the results with anyone. I always make these during the Holidays as a gift for some of my company’s top clients, and the one feedback I consistently receive is that they are gone within minutes. I believe the two keys to this recipe (and most other cookie recipes) is to chill the dough while you are preheating the oven (about 20 minutes) to prevent cookie spread (nobody likes a thin cookie), and using a teaspoon (instead of a tablespoon) to shape the cookies in order to create a bite-sized treat.

Double Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies
Total prep time: About 30 minutes
Total cook time: 8 to 9 minutes per batch

Ingredients
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened at room temperature [you can use salted butter if that’s all you’ve got, and feel free to use the microwave to soften the butter]
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour [you can substitute self-rising flour here, just omit the salt and baking powder]
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup rolled oats
4 ounces semi-sweet morsels [just over 1/2 cup]
4 ounces white morsels [just over 1/2 cup]

Directions
Cream the butter and sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla extract and mix together. Add the flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix thoroughly. Add the oats, white morsels, and semi-sweet morsels and stir until well combined. Chill the dough in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Place teaspoon-sized spoonfuls a few inches apart on the cookie sheet. Bake for about 8 to 9 minutes, until the tops of the cookies turn light golden and the edges just start to brown. Let cookies cool on the sheet for about 3 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. Try not to eat all of them in one sitting.

Store leftover cookies (how do you have any left?!) in an airtight container. They will keep for about 5 days, and can also be frozen for up to 3 months. I like to put my leftover cookies in the microwave for about 10 seconds to soften the chocolate before I dig into them again.

Share any suggestions and substitutions, or pimp your favorite recipe in the comments!

Oscar Fashion Preview

So, dear friends, we had a grand plan to publish one Oscars story each day this week and then ACCOUNT SUSPENDED happened. That’s okay though because we know it was just Crasstalk winning the Internet. We are all Honey Badger about it.

What that means, though, is that today is all about the Oscars!  Missing Peace, Dancing Queen and Ms. Anthropy are on it to bring you a full day of Academy Awards coverage.  We’re starting with a fashion pre-cap this morning to get you warmed up for the main event – a liveblog of the show tonight, starting with the red carpet coverage on E! at 6 ET/3 PT and switching to ABC when the ceremony begins at 8 ET/5 PT.  Join us – no false eyelashes, boobs, or smiles required!

We are dying to launch right into the fashion review of tonight’s Parade of the Stars but FIRST!, we offer a look into the fashion trends as displayed by the men and women who have strutted, peacock-like, down this season’s red carpets that don’t matter because they are not The Oscars.  The pressure of being a stand-out on the Red Mile, watched by millions of people around the world and analyzed by fashion experts (and us), can bring out the best (even if you forget to thank your husband later).  It can also bring out the worst.  Speaking of the worst, did you know Gwenyth Paltrow is performing a song from Country Strong? We sincerely hope she remembers a bra this year.  How many times have you yelled at the television: “FIRE YOUR STYLIST!” or “Baby, you couldn’t look better if you were covered in bacon and chocolate!”  Yes, tonight is as much an amateur fashion critic’s dream as it is Joan Rivers’ foreplay to her post-Oscars climax.

It was seafoam for Amanda Seyfried last year.

Will Nicole Kidman wear a wedding dress for the 67th time?  Will Mark Ruffalo comb his hair?  Will the first “age appropriate” offender be one of the babies or an old? We’ve got our Tim Gunn bobblehead and black Sharpie at the ready, so let’s go!

Chris Pine is so fine.

Here’s a review of last year’s Oscar red carpet. We are still waiting for the explanation as to why Nicole Richie was invited.  As for the ladies, highlights were the pre-breakup, sleek and stunning Sandra Bullock, which is much different than the sheepdog hair she sported at this year’s Golden Globes.  We needed her to be more “wash that man right out of her hair” and then style it, rather than just leave it to airdry on the way to the show. Mo’nique, who apparently didn’t spend one moment away from her man long enough to take a solo shot on the red carpet, looked lovely in blue with some hairy-ass legs. You want to know how to stand out on the red carpet? Just study Vera Farmiga.

Disappointments were an unusually bland Penelope Cruz (get a new silhouette),  the now infamous “bun boobs” on Charlize Theron, and Tinfoil & Tulle Barbie.

Scarlett Johansson as the Bride of Frankenstein

First time nominee last year only to return with a second nomination this year, Jeremy Renner changed it up from the typical penguin suit. Will he go more traditional this year? We’d like to see him “cleaned up” a bit more like this. How you improve on Colin Firth’s perfect perfection (thank you, Tom Ford) is a mystery to us, but it would not be this (come on with the tennies, RDJ – you’re too old for this).  Also, Tom Ford should be at every awards show.  Honey wears the hell out of a tuxedo.

The 2011 Golden Globes offered us visions of Angelina, Mila, and Ms. Zeta-Jones in  multiple textures of emerald green, shimmering neutrals, and whatever it was that the kooky Helena Bonham Carter had on (scraps of leftover fabric from Alice in Wonderland costumes?). We’re not feeling the 80s dresses, complete with shoulder pads and crystals – there isn’t anything new being done with that to make it feel fresh or worth revisiting – let’s hope the ladies got that out of their systems at the lesser awards.

Hopefully, this daisy-sprinkled Mia Farrow-wannabe disaster is a thing of the past – doesn’t she know The Great Gatsby remake has already been cast? Will Johnny Depp’s love affair with the pirate look off-screen continue to merge with his Hollywood Star/French Countryman/Everyman look (otherwise known as the rich hobo)?   More men should look like the man on the left, so please make that happen, and that includes you.  We’ll wait.

Our Co-Host for the 83rd Annual Academy Awards James Franco

We know how difficult it is to dress when you are expecting but there is no need to look like a box of dollar store Valentine’s day chocolates. Or worse: looking like a lop-sided damaged one even when you are not expecting, for that matter.  Also – use a steamer! You’re a celebrity, dammit, demand it!

Our Jakey adheres to the Tom Ford rule.  Please note the well-fitting suit, appropriately shiny shoes, and proportional bow tie.

The 2011 BAFTA’s brought out some of the best in this year’s nominees. Her performance may have been so-so but Annette Bening radiated on the carpet and somehow managed not to look like she was wearing a wedding dress. We think this will probably be the only time we can say that SWINTON knocked it out of the park. (Ms. A begs to differ and bows to the Swinton – suck it haters.)

Thandie Newton strikes a stunning pose at this year's BAFTA's

We can’t forget the classics, however.  Will we see an updated version of these red carpet figure skating outfits vamping it up tomorrow night? Is Cher coming to the Oscars? She really should, we need the fodder.

Also, will Natalie Portman take a rather obvious cue from the original swan woman? It might make for good maternity wear.

Who are you excited to see? Who will “make it work” and who needed to “edit.” Who will be a hit or a miss (see what we did there)?

Don’t forget to join us later today for a liveblog of Oscar night, starting with the red carpet arrivals on E! (6 ET/3 PT). We will also be doing a champagne-soaked, Spanx-free Oscar re-cap on Monday so be ready to dish!

How to abuse Google’s search ranking, for fun and profit

J.C. Penney, one of the oldest and most trusted institutions of commerce, was recently caught bumping up their search rank in Google by using deceptive tactics.

Google has been around since 1998, and ever since they came online, people have been trying to exploit its algorithm to make it so their pages appear first on Google’s listing. Have you ever gone to a website and seen a bunch of terms at the bottom of the page, or sometimes hidden (only visible when you highlight them with the mouse)?

The site was trying to artificially bump its search ranking. Google has “robots” that search the web and extract pertinent words. Loading your site up with descriptive words is one of the oldest tricks to try to get in to Google’s index. Google keeps their search algorithm secret, but they do disclose some information about how their bots work.

J.C. Penney exploited Google’s search algorithm through site links. Lets say you’re selling tires. If a bunch of automotive-related websites link to yours, Google takes that in account and assume that your site’s content is highly relevant and deserves a high rank. The more sites that link to yours, the better.

Google is smart enough to rank sites in terms of overall importance, so a link from someone’s tiny blog might give you +2 points, but if a site like Walmart links to you (they’re big, and get a lot of traffic) – you’ll get +10 points. The more points, coming from relevant sources, means a higher rank. You’re probably thinking “who cares if you’re #1 vs #2 on Google’s search ranking?” but the exact position matters. A lot. Researchers have done studies that say most people are proportionately more likely to click on the #1 link. If you’re a business as big as J.C. Penney, millions of dollars are at stake.

J.C. Penney decided to hire a shady SEO (search engine optimization) company to register thousands of websites whose sole purpose was to link to J.C. Penney. The SEO company would fill these sites with commonly-used search terms, and links. For an example, here’s a link to a Huffington Post “article” that was published before the Super Bowl:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/05/what-time-superbowl-start_n_819173.html

See how most of the “content” is short, simple paragraphs which seem to be factoids (at best)? This site is designed to be indexed by Google so that someone searching for “What time does the Superbowl start?” will be directed to the HuffPo page. This is way more advanced than J.C. Penney’s stunt. (Their pages are so un-interesting they’re not even worth linking to, unless you like looking at lists of household goods.) This HuffPo page isn’t really an article, it’s not really a “listicle” … its a page designed to drive traffic to the site.

Simple tricks like this have been vetted by Google since its inception. Since Google relies on bringing pertinent search terms to people, they really frown on stuff like this. A couple of years ago BMW in Germany decided to post a bunch of invisible text on their website (terms like “cars, auto, which car is the best?” etc) and Google de-listed them. They removed BMW from any and all Google searches! (BMW changed their site and got re-listed.) Every couple of months someone will come up with a “super ninja SEO technique” to drive traffic to websites. Generally any “super ninja SEO technique” will work for a couple of weeks, until Google changes up its algorithm. (Look in the “computer” section of Craigslist, and you’ll find all sorts of ads from people with “super secret SEO techniques.” It’s mostly bullshit.)

In response to J.C. Penney’s deceptive tactics, Google changed its search algorithm. Sites that used techniques like J.C. Penney lost  a ton of traffic. In fact, Google came out and said that approximately 12% of their search rankings have changed in the past week. That’s a ton of upheaval!

Here’s another thing: Web users should be aware of how search rankings are calculated. The number one link in Google might not be the best result for you. If you run a website, its really deceptive to get traffic like this. As someone who buys a lot of stuff online, be wary of links!