Matthew Newton

Lloyd Kahn, the do-it-yourself pioneer and former champion of the geodesic dome, is the focus of a new documentary titled Shelter. Directed by Jason Sussberg, and shot in 16mm film, Kahn discusses how home is more than a shelter, that it provides an intangible sense of safety and warmth that you feel the moment you walk in the door.

Next Monday, Matt Lauer’s interview with George W. Bush will air on NBC. Bush is on the circuit to hustle his new memoir, Decision Points. Yesterday, in advance of the televised interview, excerpts of the transcript were made available to press. The transcripts are fairly boring, but there is a bright spot.

The term itself is absurd: Influencer. Any reasonable person would laugh at such a title, perhaps go as far as classify it as a fairly pretentious way to view one’s self. But it turns out more and more “young creatives” have adopted the moniker as a badge of honor, an indicator of how they perceive their role in life.

I finally took in the film this morning however, and holy shit. It’s easy to see the moth-to-light appeal of Ninja (Watkin Tudor Jones), Die Antwoord’s cartoon-like emcee who can’t speak three words without saying fuck, and lines like this: “If you don’t know what I’m saying, don’t worry about it, it’s like we’re in the fucking future now.”

Without fail the parents lumber toward me, their dead eyes locked on me like tetanus. My pale face a beacon of terror and confusion in a sea of multi-colored playground equipment. It draws them in.

It turns out grocery stores throw away tons of food. However, if you’ve ever worked at any slave wage grocery job, you already knew that. Either way, there’s a new documentary out called Dive! that looks at all the wasted food and those who seek to reclaim it from America’s dumpsters.

When George W. Bush discovered thecobrasnake.com it was an epiphany. He had never seen anything like it. Who were all these people? What were they doing? What kind of clothes were they wearing? Most importantly, why were they so happy? He surmised they must all be on drugs.

It was just before midnight when I arrived at the bunker. I drove up to the chain link fence and unlocked the gate. Once I was through, I got out again and closed and locked the gate behind me. Then I drove along the three-mile dirt road toward the entrance to the underground loading dock. I periodically looked up at the sky.

There is no reason to continue. Please quietly click away. (Note: I say to click because I would never expect you to walk away, it requires such an inordinate amount of energy. And really, where are you going to go? Walking is overrated. And judging by the way you have deteriorated since taking that desk job at that company, I worry about your heart.

For the better part of the last year, bloggers have frantically attempted to wring every possible cent from keyword-rich stories covering Sarah Palin, Tiger woods (see above headline for proof), and a dozen other celebrity names coveted like gold in The Often Trifling Age of Pageview Journalism. It’s become a weekly, if not daily, ritual.

Blake repeats this mantra so as to burn it into the minds of his underperforming sales force, reminding them that their failure to sell condos and time shares will only result in termination. It’s not so much a morale booster as it is a warning to those lacking the killer instinct required in sales. But on a grander scale, Blake is talking about selling — no matter the product, no matter the price.