Life & Culture | Blog.OneRiot.com - Blogging the Pulse of the Web

Shatner Remixes Palin Farewell Speech

7/28/09 - Posted by Evan Kessler under Life & Culture, Politics, US

UPDATE: YouTube had to pull this video because of copyright issues, but you can find it on Hulu here!

In our mind Sarah Palin never gave a farewell speech, but William Shatner did recite a beautiful poem.

In every era there is a man for all times. A man whose artistry, integrity, and way with the spoken word mesmerizes those who he comes into contact with. For this time, right here, right now, that man is none other than Captain James Tiberius Kirk, himself…Mr. William Shatner.

Last night on the The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, the Septagenarian starfleet commander helped make sense of what we referred to yesterday as a “rambling, incoherent speech” by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. What had once been an aimless collection of meandering thoughts when first uttered by their original speaker were suddenly transformed into a flourishing garden of ideas and expression as Mr. Shatner made them his own, forever. In our mind Sarah Palin never gave a farewell speech, but William Shatner did recite a beautiful poem.

Seattle Starbucks De-Starbucks, Go Indie

7/17/09 - Posted by Evan Kessler under Life & Culture, US

picture-538 First the Sears Tower magically morphs into the “Willis Tower” and now this! On the heels of yesterday’s renaming frenzy, another recognizable landmark has caught “we’re actually not called that anymore” fever. This time it’s not a majestically stoic member of a Chicago skyline, rather the Seattle storefront that helps many local residents get their caffeine fix every morning, afternoon, and night - Starbucks.
(more…)

Chicago Annoyed Over American Landmark’s Foreign Renaming

7/16/09 - Posted by Evan Kessler under Life & Culture, US

picture-2218 Chicagoans got a rude awakening today when they looked at their skyline and saw no Sears Tower. It had not fallen victim to a heinous terrorist attack, nor had it collapsed due to structural inadequacies. Overnight the tower was dismantled, and in it’s place the next morning stood an - ahem- identical looking building. Admittedly, most area inhabitants didn’t notice the difference from merely sighting the building, but once they heard someone call it the “Willis Tower,” they became enraged.

In response to their seething rage, opponents of the new name protested the only way they knew how, by starting a Facebook group 90,000 strong against the building’s new main tenant: A London, England-based insurance broker. One riled up opponent protested calling the name change “absurd,” begging the question, “Would Paris change the name of the Eiffel Tower? Or London change Buckingham Palace? Or New York, the Statue of Liberty?” Said commenter failed to realize that none of those examples acquired their monikers by being the host to capitalist interests - as the Sears Tower had previously been mainly inhabited by the Sears & Roebuck Co. (though they obviously seemed none too concerned about their legacy in 1992, when they moved operations to the burbs). (more…)

Charts Afire // MJ Memory Fest Proves Pop’s in the Grave

7/01/09 - Posted by Abdullah Saeed under Gossip, Life & Culture

picture-2312

Pop musicians got a shock this week when a man who changed the face of their field not only prematurely kicked the bucket, but gave them one final schooling from beyond the grave. Michael Jackson’s music is tearing up the charts and, with much poetic justice, bumping out contemporary pop stars like the Black Eyed Peas (man, they really suck. What ever happened to Joints and Jam?).

(more…)

Facing World Hunger

6/25/09 - Posted by Abdullah Saeed under Life & Culture

13368_love_food_hate_waste

About a week ago, we learned a that the ratio of starving earthicans to fed ones had reached an appalling 1 in 6. While we have always had issues with keeping everyone fed, this new figure reveals the foreboding reality of a global population with plenty of food but no way to distribute it equitably. Citizens of most classes of first world countries see food wasted everyday at home and at restaurants and feel terrible about it, but would lose their golf sweaters over actually doing something about it. Even if they wanted to, what could be done? You want me to mail the rest of this sandwich to Somalia?

(more…)

Bloody Numbers: America Loves Vampires

6/19/09 - Posted by Jennifer Hodges under Life & Culture

Tweeny Twilight Fans were sent into a bloodthirsty frenzy when Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart took their vampire romance to the big screen. While high school girls all over fantasized about Bella and Edwards twisted love, a darker more mature audience discovered True Blood, HBO’s answer to America’s current corpse crush. Though the True Blood novels were written significantly earlier than Mormon Meyer’s Twilight, the internet has been buzzing wildly about both for months—each getting hundreds of social media mentions per hour. The two have very different sub-plots, but when taking a quick glance at these two different series, it’s hard to ignore their initial similarities.

Twilight: Bella, a mortal girl falls in love with a mind-reading vampire (also known as bloodsucker). She struggles to become accustomed to the dangers of their world and the physical and emotional implications that their relationship brings. Her best friend is a werewolf. Lots of sexual tension and teen angst.

True Blood: Sookie, a mind-reading mortal girl, falls in lust with a vampire (making her a “fang-banger”). She struggles to become accustomed to the dangers of their world and the social, physical, and emotional implications that their relationship brings. Her boss is a shape-shifting dog. Lots of seXXX.

We checked out some OneRiot search data to see if we could shed any light on America’s thriving coffin craze, hoping to find out which set of vampires were most popular.

(more…)

Trending Shmending: Bebe’s Kids

6/18/09 - Posted by Abdullah Saeed under Life & Culture

picture-2115

Since the beginning of ‘verbing’ words, many classic nouns and adjectives have taken the weirding of our language a step further. The most recently impactful verbed word is ‘trending,’ something that’s been awesome-ing here at OneRiot since our inception. Every once in a while, the very trend that’s occurring will stem from the question “Why is X trending?,” adding a little caveat to the whole trending thing altogether. Today, an old and currently irrelevant animated film that we have no reason to revisit, popular-ed at high enough numbers to be trending. Why? Well, Bebe’s Kids just happened to be on BET today.

(more…)

Couples Risk Storybook Disaster with Romeo + Juliet Weddings

6/03/09 - Posted by Christopher Reinhard under Gossip, Life & Culture

Planning a marriage of Elizabethan proportions but can’t find the perfect altar? Look no further! Take a page out of Shakespeare’s famously romantic (and also tragic) play Romeo & Juliet by saying your I Do’s atop the balcony of the Casa de Giulietta, the spot where Romeo first serenaded his star-crossed bride to be.

(more…)

Indian Death Pond Reveals Morbid Slackery

5/25/09 - Posted by Abdullah Saeed under Life & Culture

In India, a developing nation that still deals with the Black Death, there are simply too many corpses and too little time. In lieu of a better solution, a mortuary near New Delhi has been creatively dealing with the unclaimed dead for nearly twenty years. When a body undergoes an autopsy and no family members show up within seven days to make funeral arrangements, who you gonna call? The pond out back, that’s who.

In its current dried up state, a small body of water near the house o’ the dead revealed human remains, including about a hundred skulls. Police chief Maan Singh Chauhan suspects that former junior officers got lazy and found a half-assed short cut.

While such an unsanitary discovery would send shockwaves through any health-paranoid first world nation, it is not so jarring a prospect in a nation where cow urine is a leisurely beverage, worshippers drink milk with rats swimming around in it, and men marry dogs.

Tags: India

Glory Be // Pope Hits Facebook, iPhone with Pope2You Aps

5/22/09 - Posted by Evan Kessler under Life & Culture

Facebook sinners, prepare to saddled with massive amounts of Catholic guilt for all of your social networking indiscretions. While you previously only had to answer to your stalker friends who might be inclined to comment on every damnable offense apparent in your profile photos, now you’ll have to answer to a much higher power: His Holiness.

That’s right, el Popo is on Facebook - and he wants to be your friend. While some of the Catholic Church’s policies might be rooted as far back as the 1st century, that doesn’t mean they’re unable to bring religion coasting into the Twenty First with a hot new application. The Pope2You page allows users to send their friends and enemies virtual postcards with photos of the Pope Benedict XVI staring directly at them. If this doesn’t get them running to confession, at least it’ll be a fun tool to use to let your roommate know that you’re well aware of his solo indulgence in the pleasures of the flesh the previous evening. That’ll be “two Hail Marys” and three “our fathers.” Sinner.

Tags: Facebook, Religion

Archive for the ‘Life & Culture’ Category

Search the Blog

Categories

Buddy Up

Partnership

Recent Comments

Gossip

Freebies

Updates

Partnership

Featured Article

Stuff We’re Watching

Stuff We’re Reading

Tweet Tweet

The Blogroll

Friends

Industry

Partnerships

You need to log in to vote