In internet-niche news, it seems that our old, gossipy friend George the Third has finally succumbed to the pressure of doing nothing since thanksgiving and taken down his/her blog. It sure was interesting for a while there, though. A small, very particular slice of the Georgetown social scene was made to watch its back for a few weeks, in fear of the shadowy minions snapping TMZ-ish photos of people making out at parties. As Vox Populi noted a few weeks ago, however, it seems that Thanksgiving was the final straw for our mystery person. Here’s what’s there now:

You can check out the Google cache of his/her very first post here, although it is missing the lovely, fashionable images that must have made George feel quite important. When it’s just text on a black backdrop, somehow the magic is gone, as is a part of the Hilltop blogging scene. George, if you’re out there and want to reveal your identity after the fact, The Daily Monthly would be more than happy to publish the story. Until then, goodbye to “the Catholic, Colonial, Cosmopolitan Camelot.” It was fun while it lasted.

Hello, trailer enthusiasts. I hope you’re enjoying your weekend. To help you get through it, the Daily Monthly is here with two new trailers to two new movies, one of which looks good and one of which looks like a dog shot it out of its behind after chowing down on Mexican food. Guess which one this is:

 

‘I Love You Man‘ could have been just another run-of-the-mill, Judd Apatow production. Instead, it actually looks pretty good. I have a man-love thing for Paul Rudd, and it is good to see that Rashida Jones is still working after The Office and these weird videos with Natalie Portman. I did roll my eyes at the initial attempts to “figure out” guys, like we go on man-dates or something, but this trailer grew on me. The comedy seems sufficiently lewd and honest to keep the attention of the college-aged viewer, plus there’s dog poop that isn’t shoved in our faces (even Oscar-worthy movies make this classic mistake, *cough* ‘Slumdog Millionaire *cough) and dudes making out. How bad could it be? Also, bonus points for throwing Andy Samberg in there, even if he doesn’t seem to be playing a wacky guy. Grade: A-

Hit the jump for a terrible, terrible movie. Starring the lady from ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding.’

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December, full of finals and holidays, is also the beginning of winter. This should not be news to most of you – but perhaps you, like me, aren’t really aware of winter until the spring semester starts in January. In December, winter’s ice and snow seem phantasmagoric – natural decoration provided for our holiday enjoyment. Winter is quaint in December, enjoyable even. But with the arrival of the new year, our foolish pretensions are stripped away and we’re left with the awareness that we aren’t cold-weather creatures and winter’s end is almost three months away. January is, both literally and psychologically, the most brutal of times.

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Andrew Bird’s new album “Noble Beast” is garnering lots of attention lately, and with good reason–I’ve been a fan since his 2007 release, “Armchair Apocrypha,” a mix of delicate folk songs and sonorous indie-rock elements. Bird is a classically-trained violinist from Chicago who debuted as a solo artist with the 2005 release “The Mysterious Production of Eggs.” “Noble Beast” debuted last week at #12 on the charts, just sneaking by beloved Bmore natives Animal Collective. Read Full Post

                            
Yeah, you knew the Obama couple was kinky, didn’t you? I especially enjoy that one of the women on the show understands the error immediately, but the other seems to have never heard of fisting. Maybe there is something to that ‘generation gap’ talk. In any case, here are your weekly links:

• I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this will be the worst news men ever receive in 2009: masturbation leads to cancer.

• A super-duper high resolution image of the inauguration. You can zoom in to see Clarence Thomas napping! Also, hooray for the last inauguration link ever!

• A neat, simple game with a teddy bear making his way over windy traffic: Sunny Day Sky.

• Continuing our tradition of hilarious blogs, one girl’s lengthy (with slightly NSFW text) testimonial: I bang the worst dudes.

Hit the jump for Jacques Chirac’s run in with a poodle, love advice and what Kylie Minogue sounds like when slowed down (hint: it’s less-than-straight).

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from theworld.org

Relating to my article on Obama’s image and celebrity, I now bring you the Barack Obama salon in Khartoum, Sudan. Don’t hold your breath for the Dick Cheney pizza parlor.

Also, check out this article about the music selected for the inaugural balls and how they relate to U.S. identity politics.

On January 21, 2009, two worlds collided.

Two weeks earlier, Stephen Colbert interviewed Lawrence Lessig, a proponent of changing copyright laws to reflect our remix culture. During the interview, Colbert warned any uppity DJs against remixing this particular interview over a great dance beat. Of course, remixes popped up left and right on YouTube that very week, and a micro-phenomenon was born. The man himself summarizes the controversy here, and provides what may be the best remix of the bunch: 

So for this week’s Techno Tuesday, let’s sample the other offerings in this remix context. Some of them are really good, so you’d better hit the jump.

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As we all know by now, the global economic crisis – which began, more or less, in the banking industry – has rippled outward in a cavalcade of wealth destruction. Equity and debt markets have been hammered; the dollar has been propped up only because it’s seen as a relatively safe place to park money (even with Fed rates near zero). And the commodities markets – which saw a spectacular run-up in the last few years – have come back down to earth, for better or worse. As I discussed several weeks ago, the prices of recycled goods have plummeted, making recycling less economically attractive (although in cities like Boston, recycling is still cheaper than filling landfills). Oil is much cheaper now than it was in the summer, too – a boon to those of us who drive. But is cheaper oil a good thing for us in the long run?

I guess it’s worth acknowledging that oil prices will only stay low for so long. As soon as the economy picks up (whenever that is), demand for oil will surpass its pre-$4/gallon levels, and prices will shoot up commensurately. Until then, we can enjoy seeing gas that costs less than $2 a gallon. The time to fix the proverbial roof is when the proverbial sun is shining, though. What roof could I be referring to, perchance? Just our gluttonous and inequitable energy consumption.

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When you get to be my age – on the cusp of adulthood and its concomitant responsibilities – you find yourself assaulted on all sides by needs and desires. You need a job, but you want to fritter your last collegiate days away. You may desire employment – it beats homelessness – but you need to go to class, if you’re at all concerned for your GPA. Sometimes you need and desire the same thing – spending time with friends, maybe – and even that’s hard to accomplish, with everyone’s schedules (not mine) being so full. Seriously, freshmen will soon be coming in with personal assistants. They already have BlackBerries, like an army of eighteen-year-old M&A associates. Dumb freshmen.

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Welcome to another edition of the sporadically-present, always-great Trailer Trash. This week, we have two trailers from very different movies. Here’s the first, see if you can guess what it is:

That’s right, there’s going to be a new Street Fighter movie, entitled ‘Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li.’ My first thought upon hearing that there was going to be an SF movie this year was, “Awesome! Now Jean-Claude Van Damme can be in my life again!” My first thought upon seeing this trailer, however, was, “Holy crap! Who the hell leaves JCVD out of this movie!” In any case, the trailer has other issues.

While I’m certainly weak in the knees for Kristin Kreuk, seen here playing Chun Li, I don’t really understand this trailer at all. The Street Fighter series is not an excuse to shoehorn an action movie down the throats of willing nerds, especially when Bison is just some dude with white hair. If this were just for some generic action movie, it wouldn’t be that big a deal. Since it’s Street Fighter and there seem to be only two characters from the game here who are, you know, FIGHTING, then this is pretty lackluster. Grade: C

Hit the jump for a dumb rom-com that we can make fun of together!

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Where did they find all those neat Lego(e)s? In any case, let’s enjoy some links together, shall we?

• A satellite view of the inauguration crowd. If you look long enough, you can spot yourself!

• A cross-section of news papers from around the world reporting on Obama’s inauguration. I like the one from Montreal, where the editorial staff apparently decided that the ball was way more important than the whole becoming-President thing.

• A catalogue of Superuseless Superpowers. My personal favorite: the Complementary Chameleon.

Hit the jump for Hugh Laurie in British commercials, Durex ads and a vision of the future.

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Hello, Hoyas near and far. I suspect that most of you will spend all of today soaking in the inaugural festivities, but I figured that you could use a break. Besides, I will bet you right now that the words ‘hope,’ change,’ and ‘banana’ will appear in the inaugural speech. Before you collect on that wager, though, I have a special treat for you. This week, TT launches a series of artist retrospectives, where we will explore the catchy worlds of various house producers. First up are the Basement Jaxx, the English duo responsible for the craziest dance music this side of Haddaway (who, according to Wikipedia, has sold 28 million records. Really, people of earth?). To get things started, here is ‘Do Your Thing,’ released in 2002. This pioneered the words-on-a-shirt video way before Justice got their hands on the idea. French copycat bastards.

Next up is ‘Oh My Gosh,’ released in 2005. In lieu of showing girls in bikinis this week, I have decided to go in the complete opposite direction and show you old people making sweet love. Deal with it:

Hit the jump for six (that’s right, 5) more videos from these house legends. It’s a vacation day, so you have the time.

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The impending dissolution of Citigroup marks both the breakup of the nation’s one-time largest financial institution and the failure of Sanford Weill’s “one-stop” banking model. In the landmark merger that created Citigroup in 1998, investment and retail banking were brought together under one roof. There’s an obvious conflict of interest problem when banks that are retained for advisory services are also permitted to invest in the stocks of the companies they’re advising – but that’s not the real concern at Citi. Its operations just became too vast and complex for anyone to keep an eye on. It refused to specialize in any single banking activity – hubris that has cost Citi employees and stockholders dearly.

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While this week’s Techno Tuesday is just waiting to be published (it’s a good one, I promise), I figured that the last day of the Bush presidency deserves a political video. While Mylo is probably not a big fan of 43, this doesn’t make his music any less kickass or his video any less awesome. If only this is what actually happened in the White House - although, who knows? Maybe there are some ’state secrets’ we will never discover. Until the Chinese publicize the contents of their fly-spy, here’s ‘Muscle Car:’

Have a happy inauguration, and I’ll see you here tomorrow.

This just in:

Gawker, the media and celebrity gossip website (a slightly classier Perez), gave a shoutout to Georgetown in its post discussing the possibly disastrous outcomes of inauguration fever. Unfortunately, Hoyas (on par with terrorists, apparently) are one possible disaster.

Whatever, brah. Let’s not let them ruin our drunken, klepto, public-urination fun!

Happy Obamanauguration!