Pinched: The day I took my family to a soup kitchen. Very powerful essay on what it’s like for the working poor in America. I don’t know how anyone – anyone with less than seven houses, that is – could read that and still think the economy is going A-OK.

If you enjoyed The King of Kong (as I did), you should check out this Harper’s article (PDF) about Billy Mitchell and his Pac-Man records. The author talks to Billy and Walter Day quite a bit, and follows a Jamaican immigrant named Abdner who tries to break the Ms Pac-Man record. The author was working on the story while King of Kong was filming, and he was even invited to the screening of Billy’s infamous Donkey Kong videotape designed to steal Steve Weibe’s thunder at Fun Spot. (For the record, the author doesn’t think the tape was doctored.) I think it’s very interesting to get another view of the guy, especially since it was very easy to write off his villainous portrayal in King of Kong as a consequence of editing. The author of this piece is definitely kinder to Billy, but he still admits that the gigantic ego, defensiveness, and scheming are all true-to-life.

Man. I got a little blister on my left toe during my 20km run on Sunday, but at least I wasn’t bleeding through my shoes. YIKES. (Note to self: Always wear socks.)

“Beware the lure of casino carpets.” HA! The first time I ever went to Star City, the Snook told me in all seriousness that the extremely ugly and distracting carpeting was a deliberate choice to “hide the vomit stains.” (Link courtesy of Lynnette.)

Kevin‘s posting photos from the Democratic National Convention. I wonder if he can hook me up with one of those sweet Obama action figures…

Obama disses Cubs fans (he’s a White Sox supporter) and summarily decimates his chances of Kelly McMahon or the Garbericks voting for him. That said, I think it’s pretty cool that he did some trash-talking for his team as opposed to giving a safe politician’s answer.

Man Drought?
The funning thing is, I think this article about the “man drought” facing single women in Australia’s urban areas was supposed to make me feel sorry for the women. But instead the demographer’s formulas for determining the pool of eligible bachelors just left me feeling really sorry for the guys. “From a pool of 1.32 million men aged 15 to 24, he took out all men who said they were married, in a de facto relationship, gay, have children from a previous relationship and who earn less than $70,000 a year. It left a pool of only 60,000 men…” So if you have a kid or your make less than $70K a year, you’re supposedly unmarryable. That just sucks. I submit to you men that any woman with these criteria isn’t someone you wanted to be with anyway.

Those WERE the droids I was looking for…

Note to self: Get ingredients to make bangers and mash tonight. That picture has induced serious cravings.

WALL-E
Tonight the Snook and I joined Kunaal and some other folks in Bondi Junction to see the very first Australian screening of WALL-E. Afterwards director Andrew Stanton and sound designer (and voice of WALL-E) Ben Burtt appeared to talk about the film and answer questions from the audience. The movie was… great. I was already primed for it to be great, thanks to this amazing MetaFilter comment. (It’s not a spoiler.) But the movie still surpassed my high expectations. I had to have the Snook give me a tissue about halfway through. Yeah, I was tearing up quite a bit. And the ending? When he can’t remember? SOB. Oh, and I loved, LOVED the final credits, with the whole history of humanity/art thing. I really recommend the movie. I feel like I need to see it again, just to look for the tiny details I missed because I was so engrossed in the story. (Like afterwards, an audience member asked Andrew Stanton about Sigourney Weaver being in the film, and I was like, “What? Where?” Totally missed that one.) Kudos to PopcornTaxi for throwing yet another great event. Stanton and Burtt was fascinating, and I was too interested in their talk to remember to ask my own question. (It was going to be a snarky one to Burtt about Jar Jar Binks, so probably best that I didn’t.) Seriously, you really ought to see this movie. And take somebody you love. And hold their hand.