GAWKER: You down with OPiP(hones)?
US: Yes, you know me.

Here’s the story:

A little ways back, some dude at a German beer garden gets hammered and steals an early iPhone prototype from a blitzed Apple engineer. Couple weeks later, the enterprising thief sells said iPhone prototype to Gawker gadget blog Gizmodo for $5000. The story blows up, as the secret stolen merchandise proves irresistibly fascinating to Apple fanpeople worldwide. Flash forward to yesterday, as California police raid the home of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen, seizing a whole bunch of computers, alleging a criminal conspiracy.

File this under “is there any way this can possibly be true?” but civil liberty groups are now insisting yesterday’s search and seizure ran afoul of state and federal shield laws:

There are both federal and state laws here in California that protect reporters and journalists from search and seizure for their news gathering activities…But even if they are saying it was unlawful (to purchase the prototype iPhone), the statute appears to say it doesn’t matter. The crime that you’re investigating cannot be receipt of that information or materials.”

This would seem to be a fairly broad interpretation of journalistic shield law, granting any blogger with a modem and a LiveJournal account a 007-level license to to commit felonies in the service of amassing trivial information of limited public import. Which is to say…

MAKE THIS A MOVIE!

The dramatic potential here is HUGE; it’s Grisham meets Crichton by way of Wired magazine, the next mid-budget, high-grossing techno-legal-eagle-crime thriller. And there are bloggers involved. We LOVE bloggers. Topical.

Let’s Hollywood this effer up.

First note: iPhone prototype? Too everyday. Blah. Not sexy. Better? Steve Jobs’…children. Young children. But not too young. One is newly post-infancy. The boy. He’s four. The girl? She’s 13. Smart. Precocious. Like her dad.

They’ve been kidnapped from a San Francisco beer garden. By Germans! Nazis. Neo Nazis. The kids have vital inside information on Jobs’ next high tech venture. But it can’t be a next-gen iPhone. It’s something bigger:

Rogue nuclear weaponry. Multitasking. Portable. With stunning minimalist industrial design.

THE HERO

Cut to a slovenly, over dedicated veteran reporter, Cal. Writes for a blog. Gruff, uninviting, but with a reluctant heart of gold. He’s hot on the story, gradually infiltrating the Neo Nazi terrorpod cell. He has an in with one of the guards. He purchases Jobs’ kids. But not for $5000. Who is he, Dr. Evil? For like…$500,000,000. Does he return the kidnapped kids? No. He keeps them. They have vital information he needs for this mind blowing story. It will change lives/drive a shitload of traffic. Shield law, baby!

He’s running from Jobs, running from the Nazis, running from the cops. Just on the edge, all in service of the greater good, a paragon of journalistic integrity.

This is good, this is it, we’re hitting three quadrants here.

CASTING

This thing casts itself: For Jobs we need…Mel Gibson. He’s perfect, a natural. And due for a comeback. GIVE ME BACK MY IPHONE SON.

Jason Chen? Either that dude from The Hangover with the tiny penis or Rachel McAdams. Depending on which way we go.

Gawker CEO Nick Denton? Graham Norton. Or Steve Coogan. Or Eddie Izzard. Anyone, really.

Lastly: the grizzled journalist who purchases the kidnapped kids? Gotta be Russell Crowe. Brilliant. Blunt. Bearded. He can throw an iPhone at a hotel bellhop. Referential.

Greenlight this fucker.

Conditions in Factory Farms are universally deplorable and a lot of people are starting to figure it out. You can tell this is true by the recent spike in references to Food Inc. in your Facebook newsfeed and the number of Colbert Report appearances by Michael Pollan and Jonathan Safran Foer.

Luckily scientists are hot on the trend and may have a solution, one ingeniously dependent on genetic modification of animal brains:

Recently, scientists have learned to genetically engineer animals so that they lack certain proteins that are important to the [sensation of pain.] When these mice encounter a painful stimulus, they withdraw their paws normally, but they do not become hypersensitive to a subsequent painful stimulus, as ordinary mice do.

I love science so much but this is one of those fundamentally flawed, fundamentally American approaches to problem solving:

AMERICANS: Man, I feel really bad about the horrible conditions for animals in factory farms.
COMMON SENSE: Yeah man, I feel you. Maybe we should stop eating them.
AMERICANS: Ehhhhhhh, I dunno. What if we spend millions of dollars genetically modifying their brains such that they’re physically incapable of sensing pain?
COMMON SENSE: Dude, seriously?
AMERICANS: SCIENCE!

Why solve problems elegantly with simple and responsible changes to our own behavior when we can use well funded science and comic book dreams to dramatically refashion sentient brains?

When an aversion to corporate influence leads to comments like this:

There’s no such thing as an iPod. The word “iPod” is a marketing tool for a hard drive with software that plays mp3s. Yeah, doesn’t sound so sexy now, does it you chimps?

Stupid evil corporations and their incessant naming of things!!!!!! Who are they to attach words to products?!?!?!? Where does the greed end?!?!

You chimps!!!!!!!

The Onion’s on the case of a widespread MySpace friendship meltdown:

The outage, which occurred late Saturday night, is believed to be the result of a complicated wallpaper upload for the page of a former VH1 I Love New York contestant, which triggered a chain reaction of web browser crashes and server shutdowns.

Saturday Night Live Animal Sketches:

This list includes write-ups for animal-themed recurring sketches that appeared on Saturday Night Live. The sketches are listed chronologically.

Just reading the encyclopedic descriptions can be funny:

Dog Show was an aptly titled parody of an Animal Planet show featuring people who are more than enamored with their dogs. It was hosted by Miss Colleen (Molly Shannon) and Mr. David Larry (Will Ferrell)…

The sketch would open with David Larry banging on a snare drum, followed by the two hosts shouting “DOG SHOW!” The hosts would then introduce their dogs, “Mr. Rocky Balboa” and “Mr. Bojangles”…Often the hosts would have their dogs participate in things such as seances and weddings.

Or Brian Fellow’s Remarks on Animals:

On a tarantula: “That’s one fuzzy bug!…If I had a bug like that, I’d make a coat out of him!”…

On a pig: “Why does that pig hate Jewish people?”

Wikipedia runs a pretty solid Featured Article of the Day program, but sometimes the best entries don’t really make the cut. For that reason, I think it’s appropriate to begin highlighting some of wikipedia’s unsung heroes.

This week’s article: a comprehensive list of Fictional US Presidents. I stopped counting once I got to over 60 and I was still in the Ds, but I’m guessing there’s over 300 characters listed here, everyone from Jed Bartlett to Pete Ross.

A sample:

President Johnny Cyclops

President in: Whoops Apocalypse (television, 1982)

Qualities/attributes: A former screen actor, recently lobotomised. Hated at home and desperate to regain popularity. With other world leaders, starts World War III and resulting nuclear holocaust. Often depicted as being a puppet controlled by his security advisor, the Deacon. Possibly based on Ronald Reagan, as he is a Republican and he has a bad relationship with his son.

Played by: Barry Morse

Party: Republican

Wikipedia tends to get dumped on as some sort of illegitimate information resource (criticism which is 1000% lame bullshit). But these types of articles are what the site is made for; no other information resource would ever come close to even approximating the depth of this information.

Go ‘head Mr. Wikipedia!

Although I generally attempt to be as in-tune as possible with emerging technology trends, I admit complete ignorance on the latest format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD.

There is, however, a purely semantic reason I’m hoping HD DVD prevails: I simply cannot foresee a future in which one would refer to “shopping for Blu-Rays.” At least with HD DVD we can continue to referring to the new medium as “DVDs”, a term we’re already quite comfortable with.

A lot of embedded videos going on but this is worth it:

The Wii is f-ing awesome. This baby can barely stand on his own yet he can already easily serve, volley, and even skip his own replays!

The Wii works on all levels. You can go out Wii bowling on a daily basis but still occasionally lose to someone whose never even held a Wii remote.

It can also be a good excuse to take out your agression on an underperforming flat screen TV.