YMD's Golden Globes drinking game

This will be added to throughout the broadcast (maybe make that the first rule; drink every time something worthy of a drink happens). Anyways, some basic points that should get you nice and happy. Take a drink anytime:

- Ricky Gervais mentions being drunk (1 drink)
- Anyone else is obviously drunk (3 drinks)
- Anyone brings a drink on stage (1 drink + 1 drink for every drink they take on stage)
- Ricky jokes about how attractive/unattractive he is relative to an actor (1 drink)
- Anyone mentions how handsome George Clooney is (1 drink) (note: if Gervais compares himself to Clooney, you drink for both of these)
- Ricky mentions not being nominated this year (1 drink)
- Anyone mentions the NBC late night situation (1 drink)
- A pair of presenters are both from the same recently/soon to be released show/movie (1 drink)
- The show cuts from a shot of James Cameron to a shot of Kathryn Bigelow, or vice versa (2 drinks)
- The show cuts from a shot of Meryl Streep to a shot of Sandra Bullock, or vice versa (1 drink)
- The camera mistakenly cuts to the wrong person (i.e. Paul Dano instead of Paul Thomas Anderson) (1 drink)
- Anyone mentions Haiti (1 drink)
- As per Mary in the comments, anytime someone thanks God (1 drink)

Please post any other ideas in the comments.

I Want You Back

We're still kind of in shock over this MJ thing. So we decided to mourn tonight by getting real drunk, and we're gonna start our journey with this here MJ/J5 Power Hour I just made. The best minutes from 60 of Michael's songs: you know what to do with this.

Michael Jackson Power Hour (sendspace link)

Alcoholics Unanimous

Video for the first single from the very good new Art Brut album, Art Brut vs. Satan. It's about getting really drunk and blacking out, so that's sweet. Eddie Argos still hasn't really missed as far as I'm concerned.

(Also, hey, look, I wrote about Ciara's new blacking out song at Music For Perfect People)

Łukasz Podolski, born in Gliwice, Poland, 6/4/85

So, I've been spending my days going to Nevada Smith's on Third Avenue, as I don't have cable at the new apartment yet and the European Soccer Championships are going on. Nevada's is prolly the most famous soccer bar in the city, which comes in handy because everybody knows to go there, so you get plenty of honest to goodness Spaniards watching the Spain games, real Frenchmen watching the France games, and so on and so forth. So everyday I walk into the bar and there's a different group of people and chanting and cheering on their team in their own language and it's all real cool.

Anyways, I went for the Poland/Germany game on Sunday and it was absolutely packed with lots of Germans and even more Poles and we got our hearts broken, but that's kind of beside the point. I got to thinking the other day about how I basically hide from any organized attempts at nationalism (in college for example, no matter how many times someone told me about the Polish Club on campus, even people I didn't hate, it was absolutely the last thing I wanted to be a part of), soccer completely brings it out of me. I was singing the Polish national anthem with the rest of the fans before the game (and booing the German one, ha!) at the top of my lungs and during it I was absolutely living and dying with every kick. And I've never really questioned why, despite the fact that I've avoided all my adult life association with people based purely on nationality, it seems so natural to throw that out the window during a soccer match.

And it won't be all that much different when Poland plays, for example, Croatia. There will still be chanting and singing and passion. But against Germany, man, that was some other shit. As ridiculous as it seems to my rational, liberal self that in 2008 I should hold some hatred against Germany for past events, there was no way I couldn't think about invasions and massacres and occupations. And those are some ugly thoughts to have, sure, but at the same time, there's something oddly comforting (and, at the same time, adrenaline raising) about reconnecting with history, ugly as it may be.

I talked to some Germans after the match, not about nationalism and Nazis or anything, of course, but about soccer, and it was perfectly pleasant. And I didn't even call any of my German friends to yell at them this time. So, you know, I've survived. And I heartily recommend coming down to Nevada's with me sometime in the next 2 weeks, even if you're a neutral or not a soccer fan. Good times to be had.