Supply and Demand: Bling H20

This is the first installment in a new series here on Laskin.com called Supply and Demand, bringing you the most amazing and appalling things available for purchase on the Internet.

Bling H2o is bottled spring water that bills itself as "More than just a pretty taste." How so? The bottle is frosted glass encrusted with Swarovski crystals, for a price of $40 a pop. (A limited edition case of Baby Bling Cobalt Blue will run you a cool $552.)

Bling H20 was the "inspiration of Kevin G. Boyd, Hollywood writer-producer." (Of course he's a hyphenate.) Kevin observed on Hollywood lots that "you could tell a lot about a person by the water they carried." Really? But alas, no existing bottled water made "that defining statement... It's couture water that makes an announcement like a Rolls Royce Phantom." So that announcement would be, I have too much money and no sense?

And don't even get me started on that home page image.

refrain/stop/discontinue

Imagine my glee when I discovered a sign from my very own office's 6th floor pantry on passiveaggressivenotes.com: refrain/stop/discontinue

This is Broken: Target sign

My Target sign submission is posted at goodexperience.com.

Inmates dance Thriller

Found on popwatch: 1,500 plus CPDRC inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center, Cebu, Philippines, practice their homage to Michael Jackson's Thriller.

Doo-Dah News

Newly added over there on the right: the Doo-Daah News Network.

Courtesy of Bad Gods, the ticker provides the most important news headlines of the day that can be sung to the tune of "Camptown Races." You provide the "doo dah" at the end.

Shirley Bassey covers Pink

Shirley Bassey should cover everything. This is beyond awesome.

the caretaker

gargoyle face
Originally uploaded by Deluxx

I'm glad he watches over my garden.

One Llama Spits in Your Face

Found, via Mashable: a new music discovery site called OneLlama.

OneLlama lets you discover new music based on music you like, much like Pandora or Last.fm, but shows you the results visually in a tree format reminiscent of The Brain. It's very satisfying -- and cool -- to see the song suggestions branching from one to another, and any song that captures your fancy can be added to a playlist. OneLlama uses "“proprietary acoustic analysis, cultural analysis and trainable machine learning algorithms" to determine which songs lead to other songs, and based on my experience, it does a good job.

There is one big drawback, however. Unlike Last.fm and Pandora, OneLlama only offers consumers previews, not entire songs. Apparently, OneLlama has a different business model in mind. According to Mashable:

"You’d imagine that with the right licenses, they could use the tech (it’s very good) to serve up a convincing rival to music recommendation sites. Instead, they’re going a different route: today, they’re announcing a deal with APM (a joint venture of EMI Music Publishing and Universal Music Publishing), to develop a software solution for “advanced music searches and automated classifications”. Those navigating the EMI and APM catalogs, then (mainly producers of film, tv, videogames, promos and commercials - not you and me), will have a much easier time finding appropriate tracks to accompany their visuals."

Too bad. The technology and the interface are definitely contenders. Perhaps that will be their Phase II.

can I help you?

can I help you?
Originally uploaded by Deluxx

A baby blue jay. He still hasn't got all his adult feathers yet.

Is eHarmony Biased Against Gays? - TIME

Is eHarmony Biased Against Gays?

It would appear so. But Time's columnist John Cloud, while pointing out the bias of others, blithely exhibits his own. While discussing a lesbian's lawsuit against eHarmony for discrimination, he writes:

"Still, I think the lawsuit is a mistake, for two reasons: first, it once again casts gays in the role of victim. If you're wondering why kids still use "faggot" as a slur to mean weak and simpering, it's because gays too often whine about silly things like not being able to use a dating website for fat suburbanites."

If the lawsuit casts gays as victims, the article blames the victims. Kids call other kids faggot because, well, they ask for it! And if that weren't offensive enough, in the very same sentence Cloud tosses in another slur: "fat suburbanites." Good to know that eHarmony doesn't discriminate against the fatties, but who'd want to date 'em, right?

Chemistry.com ad

Read A Book

OED adds 2,700 new entries

The Oxford English Dictionary just added almost 2,700 new words to its online edition. Some of the new entries:
argh
bikini wax
club hopper
digibox
problemo
pro-sex
glitch
fab
prom king
prom queen

The OED is updated quarterly. The current total of entries is now 260,154, representing 697,324 different meanings.

See the complete list of new words.