“My, like, expectancy for what girl I’m going to get is, like, so fucked-up.  I’ve just been around really hot women my entire life, so the average high school girl won’t do it for me.  But instead of make me really care about looks, I look for the personality and a personal connection.  Because I’ve been around looks all my life, and it’s like, if I can’t talk to her…”

- Marston Hefner (Hugh Hefner’s first son)

In this month’s issue, GQ asks Lil Jon: Would you ever release an album as Little Jonathan?

“Little Jonathan is not a good rap name.”

The jury selection process for the R. Kelly child pornography trial is taking longer than anticipated as person after person was rejected due to their partiality. The Chicago Tribune analyzes and highlights some of the more memorable responses:

Two who were kicked off offered this philosophy, one going so far as to suggest that “nature already had an age of [sexual] consent: puberty.”

Nothing gets prospective jurors booted faster than telling the prosecution they are a fan of Kelly’s. Just ask the woman who called him a “musical genius.” When prodded to say something negative about Kelly, the best she could come up with was: “He and [rapper] Jay-Z don’t get along?” Prosecutors bounced her soon after.

Overeagerness to serve on the jury is a definite red flag to attorneys. When one man offered to rearrange a trip to see his parents, the prosecution bounced him for being star-struck.

When one juror failed to show up for service, deputies called his house and his mother answered. She told the court that she didn’t know where her son was and that he hadn’t been “right” since he was shot in the head a while back. The judge and attorneys agreed to let him off the hook.

When the judge asked one prospective juror about his feelings regarding Kelly, he cryptically answered: “R. Kelly may have led the Taliban in attacking us on 9-11, but you can’t prove it.”

This case will provide the definitive guide on how to avoid jury duty.

Read more here.

One of my coworkers received a singing telegram in honor of his birthday.  It is the first time I’ve ever seen such a character, both a singing telegram and a guy in pink monkey costume with a pink feather boa in…Converse sneakers.  Hysterical stuff.  Perfect counter to a dreary rainy day.

Missouri adult resident Lori Drew was indicted by a federal grand jury for her role in the suicide of 13 year-old Megam Meier.  Lori Drew used a fake MySpace profile under the guise of a teenage Josh Evans to cultivate a relationship with Megan who was a former friend of Drew’s daughter.  “Josh” then began harassing Megan.  Soon afterwards Megan committed suicide.

In the first case of this kind, Federal prosecutors using statues charged Ms. Drew with “one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing a computer without authorization and via interstate commerce to obtain information to inflict emotional distress.”  Typically applied towards cases involving computer fraud across state lines, this indictment, based on the physical location of MySpace in Los Angeles, is a rather creative, if unlikely to succeed application of federal statue.

Read more here.

What happened beyond the album cover borders?  What got cropped out?

View rest here.

Neurology is just like everyone else, that is, it’s just as interested in sex too.  But these scientists focused particularly on what occurs in the brain during an orgasm.  Not surprisingly, for men “researchers saw extraordinary activation of the ventral tegmental area (VTA), a major hub of the brain’s reward circuitry; the intensity of this response is comparable to that induced by heroin.”  For women a surprisingly indifferent result occurred.  Indifferent in that, as neuroscientist Gert Holstege declared at a meeting:

At the moment of orgasm, women do not have any emotional feelings.

What scientists discovered was that to achieve orgasm, beyond “tactile and visual stimuli” it “requires a release of inhibitions engineered by shutdown of the brain’s center of vigilance in both sexes and a widespread neural power failure in females.”

The study and article however does not answer the question: Why won’t she call???

Read more here.

Check out this dopey, groovy, and flat out WTF inducing bigger than life optical illusions demonstrated in 2 minutes which culminates into a giant fuck you by the video as they let you in on the fact that you just watched a “viral” ad for some Samsung cell phone.   Pfffft.

Okay, actually I’m OKAY with my heterocreativinduality to watch and enjoy viral ads by companies without feeling like I’m selling out or being duped into being some mindless consumer zombie.  Speaking of…

Memo to self about things I NEED without which I won’t soon be able to survive much longer: Apple macbook and iPod (Nano and Classic), Rock Band set, JBL speakers, bed from Design within Reach, summer season D&G boxer briefs, Patagonia spring rain jacket, black JLindenberg skinny suit, and Momofuku Ko reservation.

This video draws the viewer inside Picasso’s masterpiece Guernica which depicts the aerial attack on the town of Guernica in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War which essentially destroyed three-quarters of the city while the primary objective of the bombing–the bridge–was not hit at all.  The painting is notable for conveying the pain, anguish, and suffering inflicted on civilians by war.

Lena Gieseke video creation presents Guernica in a three dimensional framework that thoughtfully immerses the viewer into the painting and in 45 seconds contextualizes and conveys Picasso’s message better than any art history textbook.  At the least this video is a valuable tool for any professor or teacher lecturing on this piece.

In addition what intrigues me also about Gieseke’s work here is the exciting and deft blending of old and new, analog and digital, the paint brush and the mouse.

Watch it here.

This one is simple and requires no political discourse or analysis.  Simple: A website purely consisting of objects that look like ducks.