http://thehatchet.net Culture, Current Events, Humor, Personal Essays, Politics, Pop Culture, Profiles Wed, 06 Aug 2008 23:00:18 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Mamma Mia! Or in modern terminology - O.M.G. What were they thinking? They being the people who actually put forward the money to make this movie. The stage production was bad enough. Yes, there is some semblance of a story - albeit not very interesting - but the semblance is ... http://thehatchet.net/blog/2008/07/abba-solutely-awful/ Video: Anderson Cooper's gayest moments. Video: The new Harry Potter trailer, released yesterday. The first airplane fatality. Old-school alcohol advertising: "You know good bourbon, Dick." [Courtesy: Gawker, Moviefone, N.Y. Times] http://thehatchet.net/blog/2008/07/the-gays-and-their-booze/ Mainstream media's repetition and sensationalism can make it hard to find news worth reading. So, from millions of web publications, we've culled the best non-traditional and/or non-corporate news sites and organized them according to our own dubious proclivities for your enjoyment. Our advice: read religiously, rinse, repeat. Kottke - A link ... http://thehatchet.net/blog/2008/07/10-best-websites-for-alternative-news/ Some people intently watch ESPN to see which players will be drafted to their favorite teams, while I anticipate the time when Merriam-Webster adds new words to the dictionary (I am an utter word nerd and proud of it). The last word party kicked off in 2006, when Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary, ... http://thehatchet.net/blog/2008/07/new-words/ Journalist Christopher Hitchens finds out first hand if waterboarding is torture. How Facebook killed the college yearbook. A brief history of the flag lapel pin from Robert Redford to Richard Nixon to Barack Obama. Video: Unlike this, what may legitimately be the world's biggest drawing. [Courtesy: Vanity Fair, The Economist, Time, Engadget, Trend Hunter] http://thehatchet.net/blog/2008/07/grab-bag/ The danger of auto-replace: Tyson Gay becomes Tyson Homosexual. Martian soil hospitable to plant life, asparagus in particular. Ivy League education "a glorified form of vocational training." Water in photographs: touching, heart-wrenching, awe-inspiring. http://thehatchet.net/blog/2008/06/on-an-unrelated-note/ About ten minutes into "Wanted," I realized I wanted out. Sadly the one novel concept from Mark Millar's original comic book series—bending a bullet's path with equal parts telepathy and slider pitch—wore quickly, while the rest of the movie flirted with the line separating derivation and plagiarism. As the story goes, ... http://thehatchet.net/blog/2008/06/bending-bullets/ 12 op-ed contributors on why Hillary didn't get the nomination. "Shut the hell up": a look back on Keith Olbermann's career, and wondering if he might be changing news as we know it. The perils of early adoption (in this case, regarding the iPhone). A concert hall service remembering the late Tim Russert, ... http://thehatchet.net/blog/2008/06/reflections/ The U.N's Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) has reported that inhabitants of the low-lying Carteret Islands, off the coast of New Guinea, have called for urgent assistance to help them combat the effects of climate change. Seas levels have risen by an estimated 10cm in the past twenty years, and the ... http://thehatchet.net/blog/2008/06/worlds-first-climate-change-victims-call-for-help/ New Yorker editor-in-chief David Remnick on the late Tim Russert. Obama's conservative supporters. The fate of reading following the Kindle. How Google has scrambled our brains. [Courtesy The New Yorker, The New Republic, Columbia Journalism Review, The Atlantic] http://thehatchet.net/blog/2008/06/transitions/