Pop Quiz: Google Phone

Hey, techies! Which of these recently-announced, free-for-download applications for the new Google G1 Android smart phone are NOT real?

1. Krystle II: a "virtual pet" application for your phone
2. Cocktail!: Learn how to mix fancy drinks
3. Ecorio: An application that monitors your carbon footprint and gives you tips for reducing it
4. BlueBrush: Share a virtual canvas with your friends and draw on it...like "Microsoft Paintbrush," but more Internetty
5. Breadcrumbz: Open up a google map of your location and overlay it with photos and voice notes about favorite spots nearby to share with friends
6. Shazam: identifies background music in a bar or cafe and helps you order the song for download
7. Barcode Scanner: uses the G1's tiny camera to scan the barcode of any item, such as a book or a CD, then prices the item online, and, using the phone's Global Positioning System, tells you where you can buy it the cheapest in nearby stores.
8. Wikitude: also uses the internal camera to take photos of your surroundings and then provide relevant info about your surroundings, downloaded from Wikipedia.
9. Pocket Seismograph: Uses the phone's motion-sensitive accelerometer to track your speed, longitudinal and latitudinal location and elevation.
10. SandwichPsychic: Listens in to your phone conversations with your friends and, based on your current mood, determines what kind of sandwich you might be hungry for, then orders one from the closest deli, charges it to your PayPal account, and has it delivered to you within 5 minutes.

[Answer: #10 is not real. Source: the UK's Telegraph. Cross-posted today on Air America.]

Favorite Fevers

1. The auditory hallucination kind
2. Regretting that marathon
3. Chinese food
4. 4:00 a.m. insomniac house-cleaning
5. Red wine
6. Cat-scratch
7. Realizing I am wrong in the middle of an argument
8. Workday hangover
9. Crowded general admission concert
10. Love

Favorite Seasons

1. Summer
2. Indian Summer
3. Spring
4. June
5. Beach house
6. Saturday
7. Election
8. Dusk
9. Friends-are-newly-single
10. Old Bay:

Return to the Shoe Repair Guy on DeKalb

Shoe Repair Guy (to old woman in front of me in line): Don't you know you don't mess with the shoemaker, especially with his CASH.
[Old woman shakes her head and leaves.]
SRG (To me): Hello sweetie what you got for me.
Me: Hi, I just need to pick up my boots.
SRG: Brown boots? I knew it was you! Here you go.
Me: Oh, these look really good.
SRG: I KNOW THAT ALREADY.
Me (in my head): Why are you so mean?
Me (actually): [Walks out silently with head down.]

A Trip to the Shoe Repair Guy on DeKalb

Shoe Repair Guy: Hello sweetie what you got for me.
Me: Hi, I'd like to get these boots re-soled because they have holes in them and my feet get wet when it rains.
SRG: Yeeeesss yes. Twenty dollars deposit, yes?
Me: Oh, I don't have that much cash with me, sorry. Do you take credit cards?
SRG: [High-pitched voice] I don't have cash! I don't have cash! Don't you know the shoemaker he LIKES THE CASH.
Me: Alllrighty then, I will go find an ATM.
SRG: Eh, an ATM! An ATM!
Me (in my head): Jesus!
Me (actually): [Walks out silently with head down.]

Things You Can't SHOUT Someone Into Doing

by AARON REUBEN, guest blogger

1. Stop crying!
2. Go to sleep!
3. Love me!
4. Forgive me!
5. Make yourself comfortable!
6. Start peeing!
7. Don't mind me!
8. Savor this moment!
9. Concentrate!
10. RELAX!

Overheard Outside a San Francisco Tacqueria

by JONATHAN KIRCHNER, guest blogger

Loiterer 1: Yeah, man, if you're willing to sleep on the floor among my Magic cards and dirty clothes, you're fucking welcome to crash.
Loiterer 2: [inaudible]
Loiterer 1: Just don't look in my "pron" folder. I've got all kinds of shit in there, because, like, why not?
*
[Author's note: "Pron" is computer-nerd-speak for porn. Helpful guide to nerd-speak here.]

Overheard in a Fort Greene Deli

Deli Employee 1: But, like, echinacea is good though, right, dawg?
Deli Employee 2: Yeah!
Deli Employee 1: Yeah.

Things I Heard McCain Compared to in Post-Debate Analysis This Week

1. Garden gnome
2. Dancing lizard
3. Grumpy old man
4. Angry troll
5. Axe murderer
6. Manchurian candidate
7. Vomiting monster-dragon
8. Grimace, the McDonald's character
9. Person in obvious gastrointestinal distress
10. Pile of mashed potatoes with teeth

[Posted on 23/6]

Most Influential Blues Musicians

by JOHN CUSICK, guest blogger

1. Robert "Scraping By" Washington
2. Humphrey "Hang-Nail" Johnson
3. Blind "Blindey" McBlinderson
4. Flighty "No-Ears" Knickerbocker
5. Louis "Five-Nipple" Waller
6. "Tongueless" Bob Sackmeister
7. Jimmy "Superfluous Adam's Apple" Fowler
8. Jackson "Supple Coccyx" Magee
9. Lightning "Hidden, Undeveloped Internal Twin" Gordonson
10. Petticoat Julius

and by AARON REUBEN:

1. Blind Johnson Blindson
2. Blind Willie No-eyes
3. Blind Lead Watershed
4. Creamin' Jay Hoolihan
5. The Reverend Sly

Best Excuses For Not Attending a Social Event

1. Having a kid that day
2. Don't really have anything to wear, or say to you
3. Heard a rumor there will not be hummus at said event
4. Just don't like White people
5. My constituents need me and I won't let them down
6. Busy hosting identical and simultaneous social event in my mind?
7. Having coffee with David Axelrod
8. Am allergic. Just in general.
9. My parents won't let me out that night
10. Probably better to just see you on the Internet

Bloggin' the Prezzies

I'm participating in tonight's live-blogging of the 3rd Presidential Debate over at AirAmerica.com here with my coworkers Beau and Tim.

Ladies Love Hip Hop

In this week's issue of The L Magazine, out today, I reviewed Pimps Up, Hos Down: Hip Hop's Hold on Young Black Women, an excellent and entertaining book by PhD and runway model T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting. You can read it here if interested. It's the only thing I've ever written that both uses the word "fetishization" and also makes a T. Pain joke.

Things You Should Not Do While Calling in to a Radio Show

1. Walk all 8 of your Rottweilers
2. Mow a lawn
3. Drive a tugboat
4. Sit on a washing machine
5. Ride a trolleycar
6. Operate a jack-hammer
7. Fight a forest fire
8. Shovel coal into the furnace of a locomotive
9. Cave-dive
10. Cry

Overheard - The Fall Wardrobe Edition

Overheard at American Apparel:

Clerk: Hey dude, what's up with you?
Clerk's Friend: Hey man, not much.
Clerk: What have you been up to?
Clerk's Friend: Just waiting for some callbacks.
Clerk: Oh, are you going to auditions or something? I didn't know you were acting or whatever.
Clerk's Friend: Oh, no, I mean, like, I've called a lot of people, to like, hang out, and I'm waiting for them to get back to me.
Clerk: Oh, ok....cool, man.

Overheard at Urban Outfitters:

Woman Looking at Clothes: Oh, so, according to this store, I don't exist?

Best Things to Say in an Argument

by RACHEL SCHIFF, guest blogger

1) I'm just really tired

2) It's funny to hear you say that now

3) Who taught you to jump around like that?

4) We're missing the changing of the guards
5) Listen
6) I am adorable
7) This is not about the bleach
8) I think you mean "whom"
9) Jinx!
10) It was never your straw

Nailing Jell-O To the Wall

"Pinning down Senator Obama's tax proposals is like nailing Jell-O to the wall." -- Sen. John McCain in last night's presidential debate in Nashville, TN.

Colloquialisms That Didn't Make the Cut:

1. Building a smokestack out of post-its and gum
2. Throwing darts at the neighborhood paperboy
3. Jack-hammering a spaghetti sandwich
4. Catching a storm-cloud in your angry fists
5. Giving a penicillin shot to a waterfall
6. Rolling down the stairs onto an elephant's stomach
7. Chewing on a battery to make your car run
8. Filling a Spam can with your hopes and dreams
9. Playing a trumpet in the ear of a mosquito
10. Pooping in a movin' caboose

UPDATE: From GYRA in comments, this is too good to pass up...

Oddly enough,
1. = John McCain's nuclear energy proposals
2. = John McCain's plan for dealing with Latin American dictators
3. = John McCain's agricultural trade proposals
4. = John McCain's grasp of climate change
5. = John McCain's health care plan
6. = John McCain's economic safety net
7. = John McCain's favorite alternative fuel
8. = John McCain hates Barack Obama.
9. = Sarah Palin.
10.= John McCain's suggestion for dealing with radioactive waste

Reasons CNN Gives Me Nightmares

1. "Brain-wasting Mad Cow Disease"
2. "A Hurricane headed for Cape Fear"
3. "McCain and Obama in a statistical dead heat"
4. "Complete economic meltdown"
5. "Tainted milk"
6. "Sponsored by Clean Coal"
7. "George Bush to address the nation tonight"
8. John King's shape-shifting touch-screen electoral state map
9. "Yaz" commercials
10. Jack Cafferty

Overheard Last Week

I.)
NYU Student 1: I mean, at some point, philosophy has to relate to something in the real world, a person, an action, a thing. It can't just remain abstract forever!

NYU Student 2: I disagree!

II.)
Man on phone: Yo I seen four girls I used to go out with all in one DAY! Shit.

III.)
Me: I got carded in a Wal-Mart when I bought nail-polish.

Chris: Well, now I've heard everything.

Live-Bloggin' the Palin Party!

Besides taking a hearty gulp of pumpkin ale every time Sarah Palin says the word "maverick," my buddy Jake and I will be participating in 23/6's Live-blog during the VP debate tonight. You can read it HERE (not here) starting at 8:30 pm eastern.

Jobs I Wanted When I Was Little

1. Golf cart/mail truck/Zamboni driver
2. Telephone repair person
3. Supermarket announcement maker
4. Eccentric/insane painter person
5. Tennis ref in the high high chair
6. Ice Capades Dancer
7. Coca-Cola commercial singer
8. Medieval monk
9. Russian gymnast
10. Attorney General