At The Commercials: The oddly compelling Esurance woman that is not Erin.

I don't know what it is about this girl, Mica, on the new Esurance commercials. She's not really conventionally attractive, but something about her appeals to me. Heck, she doesn't even have the usually artsy-nerd glasses I like; those are full-out nerd glasses. I think it is that dry, "ohmygod you're sostupid" quality to her voice that appeals to me. Well-done, Esurance, even if nobody on YouTube likes the commercial.

Side note: When did Erin Esurance get so foxy? Apparently, her presence is going to be scaled back in commercials. Also, she apparently spent all of her commercial money on cybernetic breast implants.

Anyway. I'm sure I'll be sick of this commercial in two months, after it has been hammered into my head, since Esurance spends about $7 billion each month on commercials. At least Mica's co-worker, The Saver, seems like a pretty swell dude. I'm hoping he can provide some legitimate funnies next time.

(Speaking of other commercials with hot girls - Both of the new State Farm commercials have attractive girls. There is the obvious one, with the three girls all wishing for a hot guy. But even in the other one with the stoner guys, the girl from the other apartment? Totally wafflecrapper, as Dr. Drew would say.)

Wherein Karl worries about the proctology

Friday's Ricky Gervais Show isn't among the season's best, but hey, even a bad Gervais episode still beats the snot out of other underachieving show. (I'm looking in your direction, The Office and Saturday Night Live.)

While there is no more Monkey News - Karl ended the segment the previous week by telling the story of a chimp eye doctor, a truly great way to end it - they have adjusted by expanding his notebook feature and the general conversation segments. Both remain outstanding. This week, Karl was worried about dying during a proctology exam, and thus having to have his doctor's hand up his anus throughout eternity as a ghost. They also talked about a germ that eats chocolate. Good times!

Really, I don't have much else to say about the show. It is definitely an acquired taste; you have to like animation and podcasts. And if you like The Ricky Gervais Show, then do yourself a favor and check out the Loveline cartoons. They are along the same lines, and just as incredible, although there are only four of them.

Grade: A-

Radio Review: Loveline still thrives, with the right guest

Olivia Munn has been rumored as a permanent co-host for
Drew in the past, but nothing has come of it, unfortunately.

There are few radio shows I manage to listen to regularly, since Rhode Island essentially only has two talk radio stations. One is WPRO (CHECK!!!), and while my friend is going to be hosting an entertainment show starting this weekend, they focus mostly on political talk – Ick. Pass.

The other main talk radio outlet in Rhode Island is WEEI – sports talk. While I can't stand some of the co-hosts on the afternoon drive show, and the morning show is always a horrible train-wreck of butchered politics and sports talk, the early afternoon (Dale and Holly) and late night shows (Planet Mikey, Celtics Rewind with John Ryder CHECK) and game coverage are excellent. However, I can't always stomach the sports talk, especially after a bad game, when horrible callers flood the airwaves. (“Gah-nett is washed up! We should trade Al-hen for David Lee!”)

Because of this, I really wish Loveline was available on my radio, but alas, I always have to catch a stream or a download of it after the fact. Dr. Drew is still taking calls from screwed up kids and stoners, even though Adam Carolla is long gone from the show. Thankfully, Drew also outlasted Ted Stryker, his horrible co-host following the Carolla years that caused the show's ratings to tank.

Currently, Loveline has no co-host with Drew. Normally the guest for the night serves as a sort of color commentator on calls, whereas Drew breaks it down like, shockingly, a doctor would. The variety of subjects he tackles is pretty admirable – It has to be difficult to follow-up a call on pot usage with a girl who has been molested, followed by another stoner asking why his wang can't get hard.

However, the quality of the show is definitely enhanced by a strong guest, as opposed to Drew going solo. The best guests tend to be comedians – Daniel Tosh absolutely kills it every time he guests, as did Don Glover and Daniel Puti (Troy and Abed from Community), and established celebrities like Joel McHale and David Alan Grier. I've frequently linked to DAG in the past, but he just has so many great Loveline bits that I can't resist doing so again. Check out this moment, when DAG talks about his girlfriend cheating on him.

Drew solo grade: B+
Drew with a good guest: A

Happy Turkey Day!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Please enjoy a song medley from DAG, David Alan Grier, on Loveline, above. His Thanksgiving song comes in at about 50 seconds, but the other songs he sings are also entertaining.

Some other classic Loveline bits: DAG giving his children names based on medicine. Adam tries to help out a phone sex operator. And a caller has no idea about how big things are.

Getting freaky with SuperFreakonomics

Note - I will not actually be having sex with a book. Sorry for the misleading title.

However, I will say that I highly enjoyed the latest book from Steve Dubner and Steve Levitt, SuperFreakonomics, which is a "super" follow-up to their earlier work. I am coincidentally selling the book on eBay as we speak. Don't take my selling of it as a negative endorsement though - It's simply a financial motive on my part, since the wait was too long to get it from the library, and it did cost me $20, and I want to recoup some of that. My only regret with the book is that it is barely more than 200 pages.

Those 200 pages sure are splendid though. For those unfamiliar with the premise, the authors - a journalist and an economist respectively - take a look at several issues that seemingly aren't connected, but secretly are. For example, the introduction of the television to parts of rural India has caused violence against women in those areas to fall. In the initial book, the authors were able to prove that sumo wrestlers threw matches, which was similar to... Chicago-area teachers cooking the results of state testing.

The most controversial research in the previous book was that the legalization of abortion (Roe v. Wade) led to a reduced crime rate in the 1990s. Paraphrasing their reasoning: Women who got abortions were normally poor and not really fit to be parents yet, so their potential children were more likely to get arrested young, and thus more likely to commit violent crime. If they didn't have their kids - and they didn't - then the crime rate would fall - and it did.

Sure, other efforts, like pumping money into enforcement and crime deterrent, had an effect. But the point of Freakonomics is that some decisions have very, very unintended consequences. It's almost important to note that the authors do NOT take a moral stance on the issue - They don't say this is a reason to endorse abortion, but rather, they say that this is an effect of it.

The most controversial stance in the new book is that the solution to global warming and pollution is to... commit more pollution. Huh? Basically, the authors talk to a group of rogue inventors who have determined that the easiest way to lower global temperatures back to what they once were would be to simulate a big volcanic explosion. When the last one when off in the early 1980s, it basically undid years of pollution up until that point. Using that as their premise, the easiest way to undo years of pollution would be to snake a hose up into the stratosphere that would periodically release small amounts of sulfur into the atmosphere, blocking out some of the Sun's rays.

It is a completely wacky idea, and I doubt we'll ever see it. Environmental lobbyists in the book scream that it won't work, and I've heard the idea has elicited even more critical scorn after the book's release.

However, I do think we have to start thinking this way in terms of solving pollution. People are NOT going to cutback on consumption, and thousands more are getting added to the grid everyday in developing third-world countries. It seems unfair to say to them, "Well we got ours, and because we know how bad that is now, I'm afraid you're going to have to wallow around in shit for a few more years."

Therefore, I'm taking the Bill Nye approach. One time on Loveline, he was asked by Adam Carolla why it was important to go to the Moon when you had problems like the war in the Middle East and the economy here to solve on Earth. Nye rightly pointed out that you have to work toward solving ALL of these problems ALL the time - You can't just standstill completely on any one issue. As a society, yes, we should be looking at ways we can lessen our reliance on fossil fuels and to use alternative energy sources... but we should also be looking at aggressive solutions like terraforming and geo-engineering, in case we do need to use them.

I have some other thoughts on some of the other essays of the book, which I might give at a later date.

News - Thursday, September 24, 2009

Straight off the meat hook and right on to your plate, it's the news!

- The big celebrity news of the week concerns Mackenzie Phillips, who apparently had a 10-year incestuous relationship with her dad, and a lifelong addiction to heroin. Although I didn't see her appearance on Today, the news story that MSNBC.com staff did about it was well-done, I thought.

It is odd to me that people are questioning whether it actually happened or not, though. Yes, she was on drugs, so I suppose you can question the validity of her memories, but she does come across as pretty lucid in her responses, at least in the news article. Also, from listening to Loveline and Dr. Drew, this sort of sexual abuse is somewhat common in horrible, drug-filled situations like these.

- Work on an AIDS vaccine is progressing forward, with clinical first trials showing some promise. Scientists don't seem to think it'll be a perfect solution, but it is great to see progress being made.

- And finally, in bizarro stripper news... A former stripper is claiming that a Catholic priest would preach on Sunday, and then make fun of God by banging her, and attending nudist and sex clubs obsessively, the other six days of the week. You will be absolutely, positively SHOCKED about where this happened. Wait for it... Wait for it... MIAMI FLORIDA.

Just say no to moving to Florida, unless it's for college. (Erin Andrews, call me!)

Thanks to this site for the image at the top.

Stats, stats and stats - August 2009

[Left] Why this album cover? Because it's the album with "Popular", like totally duh.

I always liked when Adam Carolla would announce his salary while he was doing the Loveline radio show, so in a sign of openness, I've decided to share my hit numbers and advertising revenue numbers with you, my faithful readers, after each month. While these numbers might be a little too “inside” for some, I'm always secretly curious about how popular various sites are.

That being said, there is nothing that surprisingly about my blog. From the comments, it probably isn't surprising that I don't get 50 million hit per day, or make enough money to buy a Hawaiian island. (Even a small one with just a single palm tree, like in a Far Side cartoon.) Also, since some have asked me how to support the blog: If you see an ad you LIKE, or that interests you, click it. Just trying to rapidly click them doesn't help, since it invalidates that batch, and it is possible that they think you or I am a spammer, and shut down your account or mine permanently.

Here is the breakdown for Saturday, August 1 to Monday, August 31:

Total number of visits – 408
Total number of pageviews – 717
Average time on site – 2:03
Percentage of new visitors – 37.99%
Most popular days – Monday, August 31 (30 visitors) and Sunday, August 16 (28)
Least popular days – Tuesday, August 11 (2 visitors)
Top Five referrers – Twitter (28.19%), Facebook (13.48%), Blogger (12.50%), direct link (11.52%) and Gmail (6.86%)
Top Five states – Rhode Island (136 visits), Massachusetts (95), Mississippi (27), California (22) and New York (13)
Unpopular states – Nobody from has ever visited by site from Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri, Alabama, West Virginia, Delaware and Vermont.
Top Five cities – Biloxi, MS; Somerville, MA; Franklin, MA; Medfield, MA; Providence, RI
Ad revenue – $1.60, up from $0.52 in July

Podcasting habits and loves

My favorite podcasting trio.

If there is one thing that makes me happy about the rise of Apple, it would be the surge in podcasting iTunes and iPods can claim responsibility for. The increase goes hand-in-hand with the rise in the program and the device, which I'm grateful for, since it means I have more podcasts to listen to.

I'm actually trying to listen to one as I type this, but I finally had to cave and switch to music. Unfortunately (kind of) with podcasts, I have to pay attention a lot more, since it is spoken word as opposed to music. Podcasts slow my writing to a crawl, as opposed to encouraging me to type quicker, as most of the music I listen to does. Of course, I completely forget this half the time I'm typing, so I invariably try to pound something out while I'm listening to a podcast, and then marvel at how little I've gotten done.

Anyway, there are three I listen to regularly, and they're all somewhat-related:

1) Adam Carolla hosts a one-hour podcast that updates around 10, 11 p.m. PST from Sunday to Thursday, with Friday and Saturday off. While the biggest “name” he's had on was Francis Ford Coppola, Adam is consistently funny with his (usual) B-list guests: Eric Stromer, David Alan Grier, his old morning crew, Joel McHale and others. He also goes off the beaten path a bit with guests, as last week he talked to a writer from Rolling Stone about the crash in the housing market, and to another writer who used to be a drug runner.

The hour-long format is just Adam and another person, sometimes two or three, shooting the shit. (This also has a somewhat literal meaning; the show is not sponsored, so the language is uncensored.) While it can get tedious if the guest has been on a ton of times – I'm looking in your direction, Teresa Strasser – Adam normally powers through with his bluster. It's a lot different from The Man Show, so if that's your only experience with Adam, give this a shot.

2) Bill Simmons' podcast is probably a little better known to people reading this, since it is frequently on the front page of ESPN.com. However, I highly recommend subscribing to it on iTunes, since he'll have a busy week every once in a while and the front page will lag behind, or the latest Vick-Favre fiasco will push him off the front temporarily.

Simmons does a better job of serving is core demo as opposed to Carolla, as the people on his podcast are normally sports figures or analysts. For example, this week and last he has had Matthew Berry (Mr. Roto) and Suns' point guard Steve Nash on, and Cousin Sal, who is a cousin of Jimmy Kimmel and a degenerate gambler, to talk fantasy football.

However, just when you think his podcast is getting a bit stale, he'll spice things up with an “out of left field” guest, like Neil Brennan, the writer for The Goods and the head writer for Chappelle's Show. He has also had Marc Cuban on, and Dave Metzler to talk UFC and WWE, and he almost got Barack Obama before the election, except ESPN cockblocked him. (p.s. ESPN still sucks, even if they did manage to get two people on this list. Speaking of...)

3) I've been extolling the virtues of Dave Dameshek for years, ever since he was originally on The Adam Carolla Show in 2006, and when he got his own shows in 2007 and 2008. He has moved on to podcasting for ESPN, and while the show does skew toward Los Angeles and Pittsburgh sports (Dave's current and former areas), it is still enjoyable to just about any sports fan because of his guests.

Normally, they are the better Page 2 ESPN contributors, such as DJ Gallo and Jonah Keri. I have no idea why they don't seem to do many other radio spots, because they are both funny and informative when they're on Dave's show. Still, the nation's loss is Dameshek's gain.

Dave also has random debate topics, like the best uniforms in sports, and the best movie fight scenes. (His #1 is, unfortunately, from a movie I've never seen but now want to after his description - Flash Gordon.) Dave also sometimes has trivia contests with a caller, The Ed, which are sublimely funny, since The Ed continually screws up athlete's names.

Outside of those three, I do catch a Loveline stream from time to time, but it varies a lot on who the guest is. Olivia Munn was the co-host all of last week with Dr. Drew, so that had significantly more appeal to me than the other night's show with Jon Lovitz (meh), or Andy Dick (ugh) the previous week. I do end up having to catch it live when I can, since it costs money to download after the fact, which stinks.