(no subject)

I read Apple is working on a red iPod Nano, again with cooperation from U2, this time to increase awareness of AIDS in Africa.

I'm quite aware of AIDS in Africa.  In fact, that's the only thing I know about Africa.  Everyone has AIDS there.  Some people have it two or three times.

OK, that's a lie.  I also know about the poverty, the female circumcision, and that king of Swaziland who picks a new wife every year and banned the color red from broadcast television.  And if I say "Nigeria", what's the very first thing that comes to your mind?

Perhaps if I had some awareness of something in Africa that didn't make me queasy in some way, I'd be more jazzed about the red iPod.

Maybe I ought to try that Ethiopian restaurant.  It'll humanize the continent once I've had some of its food.

(no subject)

Hey, remember a while back when I posted that I wasn't impressed by Carlos Mencia?

Neither is Joe Rogan.

Includes lots of audio.

A lot of comics accuse him of being a joke thief, which I can understand.

Though ripping on him for having a stage name is probably a little out of bounds. Jamie Foxx's real name is Eric Bishop; I wonder which name is printed on the Oscar?

But I knew there was something vacuous about his act. Any skepticism I have about his joke-stealing ways is due to the utter lack of jokes in his act. He'd just do some exaggerated stereotype voice, and when nobody laughed he would accuse the audience of being stuck-up.