Just another day at the office...

I DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT The Brokers With Hands on Their Faces Blog back in 2008, when the global economy took a big ol’ tumble into the toilet. I’m sure it would have lent a bit of bizarre lightheartedness to an otherwise f-d up situation.

The blog – which, as per its name, showcases images of brokers with hands on their faces, those cliched photos that most every newspaper in the world runs whenever the economy takes a turn for the worst – was launched in the fall of 2008 as a humorous response to the big crash. It ceased operations in 2009 when things seemed to be improving, at least as far as financial markets were concerned.

With the markets having resumed their madness over the past week, however, TBWHOTFB creator Matthew Robison – who has since relocated from New York to Wisconsin, and is struggling to make ends meet – decided to re-start his Tumblr photo blog with fresh images of, well, brokers with hands on their faces. Honestly, you’d think these guys would be used to watching the markets get hammered; that reacting like that would just be a waste of energy at this point.

Anyway, kudos to Robison for being able to find a bit of funny in these deeply depressing (or is that Depression?) circumstances.

ryan@roadtostarrdom.com

Image: thesun.co.uk

IN WHAT HAS to be the ultimate act of douche-baggery, a super-rich Abu Dhabi sheikh had his name, HAMAD, carved into sand on an island he owns, in letters so large they can be seen from space.

The Sun newspaper reports: “The name is two miles across — with letters a kilometre high. It is so huge that the “H”, the first “A” and part of the “M” have been made into waterways.”

What an asshole.

Apparently this guy is so rich that he has a fleet of more than 200 cars “including seven Mercedes 500 SELs painted in different colours of the rainbow … housed in a custom-built pyramid,” according to the Sun.

Can’t say for certain, but I’m pretty sure the size of those letters is inversely proportional to the size of Hamad’s willy.

ryan@roadtostarrdom.com

AS THE PHONE-HACKING

Columnist Viv Groskop zeroes in on Brooks’ free-flowing red mane – which, IMO, makes Brooks look like a scary cross between Medusa, Sideshow Bob and Carrot Top – and the supposed power it wields:

Brooks doesn’t have a hairdryer. Her look is natural. It says: “I do not waste time at the salon. Don’t mess with me.” Big hair with no effort. That is real power. Or at least it was for Brooks.

Big hair is always impressive. If you have it you either are important or you want to be. Big hair cannot be ignored. It is big for a reason.

Not sure about the value of this analysis, though to be fair to Groskop, she was probably just looking for a fresh angle in a mega-scandal that’s being exhaustively covered by the British news media, a frenzied lot on a normal day.

Far as I’m concerned, had Brooks – editor of the News of the World when the staff at the now defunct Sunday tab hacked the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler – been able to see better through that crazy carroty coif of hers, she might have envisioned how her staff’s amoral antics might end up ruining her career and bringing her boss Rupert Murdoch‘s media empire to the brink.

Maybe it’s time for a hair dryer.

ryan@roadtostarrdom.com

Now, with yesterday’s bombshell that the News of the World would be shut down following the 168-year-old paper’s phone-hacking scandal, it’s time to see what the notoriously nasty British tabs – which love to revel in the downfall of others – had to say:

They don’t disappoint. The Daily Mirror is the clear winner in this case. The Daily Mail’s headline is kind of lame. To be fair to the Sun – which played it safe – the paper is owned by Rupert Murdoch, proprietor of the soon-to-be-defunct News of the World. Don’t think this was the time to be its usual cheeky self.

That said, turns out the venerable Times of London – yet another Murdoch-owned paper – went with the exact same headline as The Mirror:

How could they resist, though? A great headline is a great headline, and that’s a great headline.

Honourable mention goes to the Daily Telegraph:

ryan@roadtostarrdom.com

PRESIDENT OBAMA

He, and most rational people, realizes that “trotting out” pictures of OBL’s corpse like some sort of trophy would only serve to inflame the situation and provide an obvious propaganda tool for extremists.

In spite of the celebrations and commemorations at the White House and Ground Zero, we all must realize that just because OBL is gone doesn’t mean the threat of future terrorist attacks has been eliminated; far from it, his assassination will more than likely inspire reprisals.

But anyone who doesn’t believe that Osama was killed and dumped in the deep is a fool. After all, if the al Qaeda boss was still alive and kicking, don’t you think he would have made it clear by now with one of his infamous videos or audio tape recordings?

For his part, Obama’s realized from his birth certificate debacle that all the proof in the world still won’t be enough to eliminate the doubts of those bent on believing what they want to believe. (As the headline on a CNN story aptly put it: ‘Deathers’ take over where ‘birthers’ left off.‘)

The president took a huge risk in ordering the snuffing out of America’s Public Enemy No. 1; he’s smart enough not to take another one by parading around shots of that fuckhead’s dead body.

ryan@roadtostarrdom.com

Of course there are plenty of folks out there who are sick of hearing/watching/reading about the wedding of the century (though I can’t imagine what they’d rather focus on instead: ceaseless bloody violence in Africa/Middle East; soaring gas prices; an overall shitty global economy; “birther” bigots declaring Obama not a “real American”).

Still, I think the Philadelphia Daily News went a tad overboard with the front page of its Thursday edition. It’s not so much that the cover is inappropriate; it does somewhat accurately capture the sentiment of the moment, at least among the grouches out there). It’s just not all that clever, that’s all. We are not amused.

What’s more, it’s rather contradictory. The Daily News devotes three inside pages (and its entire front) to talking about why “we’re already sick of the royal wedding.” Apparently, though, the tab isn’t above capitalizing on the big event to sell papers.

ryan@roadtostarrdom.com

STATISTICS CANADA

In Canada monthly inflation in March spiked to 3.3 per cent, propelled in large part by rising food and gas prices. As noted by the Canadian Press:

“With drought, storms and other bad weather affecting major global crops such as wheat, coffee, sugar and corn, it’s no surprise that the cost of everything from flour to bread, meat and vegetables is rising on store shelves in many parts of the world. Higher gasoline prices are also making it more expensive to fill your car, but also raising the cost of transporting food to market.”

Adding further pain to pocketbooks, the cost of hydro here in Ontario is set to rise yet again in May.

Meanwhile, you can be damn sure wages won’t be increasing accordingly to help people cope with these exorbitant prices. I’m not living on the poverty line – not yet, at least – but I’m definitely feeling the pinch; I can only imagine how poorer folks are coping.

It’s enough to make you want to scream, especially when you think about all those bungholes on Wall Street who messed up the global economy, putting millions upon millions out of work as a result, and haven’t suffered the least bit for doing so. Indeed, most of them likely haven’t felt any pain.

Now I’m no Marxist, but I can certainly see what the bushy-haired guy was getting at with that whole proletarian revolution thing. If we weren’t living in such a complacent, self-absorbed age, I would think the time for it was drawing nigh.

ryan@roadtostarrdom.com

The Panda Cam: No work getting done when this is on...

I SEEM TO BE doing a lot of baby animal posts lately. (Well, only two, in a row, but two well-warranted ones, dammit!)

Anyway, whoever it was at Mozilla who came up with the Firefox Live promotion, he or she is frickin’ brilliant.

As part of a campaign to generate buzz for the recently launched new version of the Firefox browser, Mozilla has adopted a family of red pandas at the Knoxville (Tennessee) Zoo and put them on display for the world via six live webcams that monitor their every adorable little fuzzy wuzzy move. “We’re streaming cuteness,” a message on the website says.

There’s also an online poll: “Soon the cubs will be leaving the zoo to become parents themselves,” it says. “How does this make you feel?”
(  ) Nooooooooooo!
(  ) They’ll forever be in my heart.
(  ) I’ll finally be able to work again.
(  ) Let’s put a webcam on their babies.

In a twist that’s either genius or horrible, after a certain number of downloads of the new browser, the baby pandas get a treat. (There are benevolent aims here too, mind you: visitors to the site can donate to the Knoxville Zoo to support red panda conservation, or to the World Wildlife Fund to raise money for Tumucumaque, the world’s largest rainforest park in Brazil.)

Ultimately, Mozilla says, its goal with Firefox is to “make the Internet better for everyone. In this case, we’re making it significantly cuter, too.”

And mission accomplished, Mozilla – I just updated to Firefox 4.

ryan@roadtostarrdom.com

Baby Knut: How could you reject a face like that?!

I DON’T CARE what anyone says, the most tragic news story of the past week was not Japan on the brink of nuclear disaster. It was the sudden death of Knut, the four-year-old polar bear at the Berlin Zoological Garden.

Sky News reports that on Saturday afternoon Knut “waded into the water at his enclosure before having a short spasm and then dying in front of hundreds of zoo visitors.”

How sad is that? OK, maybe not as big a tragedy as Japan, but heartbreaking all the same.

You may recall that the world fell in love with Knut when he was born in captivity at the zoo back in 2007. He was rejected by his mother at birth (how that’s possible, given how head-explodingly cute he was as a cub, I can’t understand) and raised by zookeepers.

Knut died rather prematurely. Polar bears normally live up to 20 years; longer if in captivity. Apparently, though, the bear went out the way many guys dream of. According to Sky News, “Knut collapsed after mating with several females.”

Nice one Knut.

ryan@roadtostarrdom.com

I LIKE TO THINK

I discovered him this morning, via an e-mail from Live Nation about upcoming concerts in Toronto. Almost spit out my coffee upon reading his name, which to me sounds an awful lot like that of Cambodian mass-murderer Pol Pot, especially if you say it out loud.

You’d think Potts’ star-makers would anticipate this being an issue and, as per showbiz tradition, give him a far more marketable stage name. Apparently not.

Potts’ 2007 debut album topped the charts, coming in the wake of his winning of the first-ever Britain’s Got Talent. His subsequent efforts, particularly his latest one, released last fall, haven’t been as successful. That’s strange, normally TV talent show winners go on to have thriving careers (cough).

Anyway, nice to see that Potts’ waning commercial appeal hasn’t dissuaded his management from charging fans over $100 to see him sing.

ryan@roadtostarrdom.com