Hello Readers! This marks the first in a series of reviews/articles which will be co-authored by 26andStupid’s Ed & Jack. We call it EdJackulation. Today’s feature will focus on the recently released Man of Steel, directed by Zach Snyder. Intro: Jack Christopher Nolan definitely gets part of the blame for what I saw last night, and how I reacted to [...]
There’ll be more original stuff coming soon, I promise. But to bridge the gap, more Chomsky: http://banoosh.com/blog/2013/06/04/noam-chomsky-are-we-on-the-verge-of-total-self-destruction/ The best part of this article is probably the North Korea section. It’s pretty easy to immediately inspire hatred or dismissal if you even try to talk about North Korea or some other country summarily branded crazy and evil in anything but those [...]
I simply don’t have the breadth of knowledge and research to do this topic justice, so I’m gonna hand it off to someone who does. The name Noam Chomsky means different things to different people. If it evokes negative, distasteful things to you, then read the article below purely for the information. Consider what is spoken, and not the speaker. [...]
Normally journalists tasked with obituaries write them in advance, in anticipation of someone dying, so they can be on the spot with a few thousand finely crafted words when the expected indeed arrives. Normally obituaries, however distasteful the person who earns one, are salted with some kind of reverence. I have grown to hate the way the 2013 Knicks play, [...]
more context: http://www.snopes.com/photos/signs/sciencetest.asp The downside of this whole fuss people make about freedom is that people who really shouldn’t enjoy the benefits of freedom (for example, many who are controlled by some sort of group fanaticism, such as some extensions and branches of organized religion, as opposed to personal faith which I have no qualms with) get to pollute [...]
A good friend has anonymously submitted the following image, which should serve as a good guide for those of us who are uninsured.
Yesterday, I watched snippets of Stewart and Colbert with my friends. The only marathon bombing coverage they brought up in the bits that I saw focused on making fun of on-scene reporters: one said that the eerie silence in Watertown felt as if “a bomb had been dropped”, others stumbled through futile attempts to keep the coverage fresh in between [...]
Just a real quick comment, the guy who wrote this article is a misguided, misogynistic dick, and his article is fucking insane: http://elitedaily.com/elite/slideshows/20-mistakes-20s/?slide=1 I don’t have much advice to give in life, I’m still trying to navigate it myself, but I do know this: don’t be a fucking dick.
The following is a submission by a friend who wishes to remain anonymous. It is a cover letter for prospective lovers. Inquiries for this position may be sent to 26andstupid@gmail.com *********************************************************** To Whom It May Concern: I am a single, Asian-American law student looking to apply for the position of your girlfriend with the eventual goal of being promoted to [...]
The following was written by a friend who chooses to remain anonymous: *********************************************************** I’m standing outside Grand Central having a cigarette after a ten hour workday, in which nothing was accomplished and no one’s life was made better. I’m only in New York for the day, and I wonder if everyone around me feels as unfulfilled by their life choices [...]
If I ever have a pop music album it will be called “Love Songs Modified to Seem More Reasonable” The band will tentatively be called “Civilized Desert.” These would be my tracks. Track 1: Originally written by Savage Garden: I Knew I Loved You (after around a year or two, in which we shared a generally healthy relationship that had [...]
My March Madness bracket held up decently through day 1, but on the second day, my national champion pick (Georgetown, sorry Ed) lost to Florida Gulf Coast. In somewhat convincing fashion. I briefly remember, when glossing over this match-up in picks, I recalled that another 2-seed, Miami, had also lost to FGCU earlier in the season; at the time and [...]
So, I’m kind of a driving noob. Last August, I passed my driving test by the skin of my teeth with 25 points in violations, when I managed to clutch the parallel parking that I always fucked up in practice. In addition to being bad at the actual act of parking, I also suck at figuring out where to park. [...]
Shiva and I board the N train on our way to Canal Street to visit Tommy’s bike shop. (P.S. It’s awesome and you should go there, or buy one of their bikes online .) Shiva is complaining to me about some tenant/rent issues that his mom is going through with property she owns.. I have no idea what to tell [...]
When I was younger, I always heard from teachers that scientists said the probability of intelligent life existing in the universe we had already discovered was pretty low. I always instinctively thought that this was a ridiculously myopic assertion, because “life” was defined so rigidly as basically requiring some kind of water and other similar Earthly elements or conditions. And [...]
After 7 weeks of a slightly healthier lifestyle (interrupted by some days of DotA-related sleep deprivation), I geared up for the final push using mild dehydration through caffeine, intermittent hot baths, short term fluid/salt intake restrictions, and running on the morning of. I weighed in at 190.7 this morning before the wedding. This is a good amount over the target [...]
First, read this: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/02/world/asia/chinese-tv-special-on-executions-stirs-debate.html?hp Next, ask yourself something. If you were to get rid of the word “Chinese” (or just replace it with another country or nationality) every time it appeared in the article, would this even remotely have news value? That a country televised not an actual execution (as was done here in America with Timothy McVeigh, albeit to [...]
In any remotely evenly matched DotA 2 game, the two teams’ total gold networth will be roughly similar, and how that gold is spent will make a huge difference. Much of this depends on hero role, of course, but the tighter your pockets, the more important it is to spend your cash carefully. I’ve lost games by squandering gold on [...]
There are few things more dystopian than one day realizing that a huge chunk of history you were indoctrinated with growing up, infact the chunk that deals with where you live, how American society came to be, and also happens to include the greatest misfortune (and subsequently, the greatest upset victory) in human history, was just fed to you as [...]
My friend over at ReflectsDamage.com and I were bored and decided to reduce people’s hard work into annoying (and mostly inaccurate) one-liners. ******************************************************** Movies: Batman Begins: Billionaire Christian Bale copes with parents’ death by beating the shit out of poor people and the mentally disabled. The Dark Knight: Billionaire Christian Bale fights his most competent rival, an insane person [...]
The following is a piece submitted to us by our dear friend Justin. ******************************************************** “Goong Goong” One of the few words I know in Chinese. To be honest, I’m unsure if the “Goong” is supposed to be said twice, or if it was taught to me like that because I know absolutely no Chinese. But he smiles at me from [...]
John Broder is an environmental reporter for the NY Times who recently test drove an electric car from Tesla. Broder writes extensively about oil and generally writes about how crappy the electric car is. Including the Tesla vehicle he drove. Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO, responded by producing the logs of Broder’s voyage, which he says show that Broder outright lied [...]
The NBA’s 19 year old entry age limit is a hotly debated issue that has been argued cogently on both sides. Recently, Nerlens Noel, Kentucky’s freakishly athletic center, went down with a torn ACL on a horrific play. It’s quite possible he’ll never be the same; at the very least, his professional progression will have been hampered, and he didn’t get [...]
A friend of mine over at ReflectsDamage.com challenged me to type up a freestyle (this was in real-time). The topic was rappers as modern philosophers. Note: I acknowledge that I have oversimplified and/or inaccurately stated some of this philosophy stuff, but eh. WHATEVZ. Here is what I came up with: EMINEM as David Chalmers whiplash as i attack this rap and [...]
I love most shows that carry any element of smurfing. Smurfing is, as I first came to understand it in the context of competitive video games,when a good player would make a new account which would start at a low rating, and proceed to destroy people anonymously. It’s an idea that makes shows like Pro’s vs Joe’s so entertaining; you [...]
“Criminals thrive on the indulgence of society’s ‘understanding’” – Ra’s Al Ghul, Batman Begins A year ago, I was headed to a friend’s apartment on New York’s Upper East Side when I was jumped by 6-8 people. My attackers did not want to steal anything from me, and made no demands of any kind. They just wanted some blood. Thankfully, [...]
I don’t pay much attention to the mainstream news anymore – a fact that usually surprises my friends who know that I went to journalism school. For the most part I never really did, except for heavy childhood doses of NBC Nightly News before the switch from Tom Brokaw to Brian Williams, and some Dateline with Stone Phillips or 20/20 [...]
Many TV shows are like music albums – there are many average or otherwise forgettable episodes, mixed in with some amazing ones. What comes to mind when someone brings up Star Trek: The Next Generation? I recently re-watched the show’s 2-part finale episode, titled “All Good Things…” A good science-fiction show or story takes advantage of its unique universe to [...]
Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of Bobby Fischer’s passing. I’ve always been a huge fan of real-life tragic heroes; though sometimes my definition of “hero” can be disputed, in Fischer’s case it’s not really up for debate. You will notice a common theme among some of my tragic hero selections: they are precocious talents or otherwise extraordinary achievers who their [...]
In just under two months, I’ve got a friend’s wedding to attend as a groomsman. Now in 2012, I grew quite portly; I went from a low of 168 lbs. at the start of the year to a gargantuan 207.7 around Christmas. I am 5’6, and despite having a pro running back’s BMI, I am most definitely not built like [...]
I am a senior in highschool and I am one of thirty finalists that have to perform a spoken word poem in front of a packed high school auditorium (600 people? 700? 800?). Each competitor has been farmed from an earlier competition in which they defeated many others. The winner of this whole shebang gets $1000, box seats to a [...]
Happy New Year folks! To celebrate the new year, I’ve decided to write about the following half-baked 26andstupid theory: our economy (or at least our lives) might be run by the fact that we are all trying to run away from our problems. Seriously. Think about the nightlife industry–just masses spending billions every year to forget their problems. We spend [...]
Obviously this post will have spoilers, so let me first talk a little bit about Tarantino so we can avoid those in the preview snippet. He’s got some awesome things going in many of these movies. One of these is gratuitous revenge. This is great because revenge is very viscerally satisfying for most people. Even if they wouldn’t go to [...]
Hello everyone. Interloper speaking. I met Ed six and a half years ago, two hours after I had barfed on the side of my friend Anna’s car, a few days after ACL reconstruction surgery. I had a fever. We probably should have driven straight to the hospital after I vomited, since it turns out I had a nasty bacterial infection [...]
I was really excited when StarCraft II was first announced. If the leap from StarCraft to its successor even approached the leap from WarCraft II to III, this game would be another epic. Instead, it seemed Blizzard began to go down the path that often plagues established entities in business – the sacrifice of daring innovation for comfortable stability. But [...]
Never had I seen a sunset both so beautiful and threatening. Beautiful, because sunsets usually are, this one enhanced by the unending warm green Costa Rican hills and terraces. Threatening because when we finally stopped getting our daily allowance of light, we’d have to drive the snaking mountain roads between La Fortuna and Jaco with only our pitiful halogen substitutes. [...]
I was 18 years old and Sunny was my roommate at the prestigious State University of New York, Binghamton campus. This is a joke, because Binghamton is the worst place on Earth to me. That’s a bit unfair, because I actually know a small chunk of very decent, ambitious, and successful people who have attended Binghamton, who have lived in [...]
This morning, I learned of two terrible events. First, there was the Connecticut school shooting. Next, HSBC had been fined about $2 billion for widespread money laundering to drug cartels and banks with known terrorist affiliations. I don’t know enough about the shooting to write about it with any kind of justice. What I do know is that in the [...]
It is the summer immediately after college and I am on a 40 day backpacking trip throughout Asia. I have five stops, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Bali, Tokyo. I’m in Shanghai, and it is exhilarating. I’ve never really gone on a trip on my own. I’m going to grimy underground clubs. I’m eating street food. I’m buying trinkets and haggling [...]
I finish my Junior year at NYU and my grades have plummeted. It wasn’t just my dad’s death at the beginning of the school year—it was also that I became a commuter student—which requires a 1.5 hour trip each way, and that I had taken on a part-time job at a small, dingy, but kind-hearted law firm that was doing [...]
A few months before I graduated from journalism school, I met with a senior editor at the NY Daily News for a chat-and-coffee disguised as an informal interview. I was early and waited in the hall outside the newsroom, where trophied frames of headlines and photographs from the decorated past reminded newcomers that this paper had won awards and accolades [...]
The truth is, I don’t remember much of my father’s funeral. There are a few clicks of memory here and there. I do remember being by his side in the hospital the day he died. It was the day before my 20th birthday, and I still like to tell people that he died when I was 19, because I figured [...]
We are young 20-somethings in our first years of law school and we receive an email from the APALSA (Asian Pacific American Law Students Association) listserv that is a fwd: and it reads: ******* & ******* Invite You To Our Annual Rooftop Wine and Cheese Reception, where ****** and ****** are names that belong to a firm. Immediately, my self-centered, [...]
I arrive at Lincoln Center at 8:35 AM and am five minutes late and I am dressed almost exactly as I was instructed to: Black V Neck The Darkest Skinny Blue Jeans I Own (I own no black jeans) Black Socks Dark Grey Hoodie Dark Gray Shoes with White Trimming Even Black Boxer-Briefs I am an unemployed lawyer and I [...]
58 Hours. In 58 hours, Kay and I must edit, perfect, and produce four copies of our 800 page document submission to the court. The document submission includes briefs, affidavits (from our clients, their relatives, expert witnesses, etc.), newspaper articles, and various human rights reports. We have major changes to make because one of our clients has a problem with [...]