Practicalmadness

Tonight’s edition of Two Minutes Snark is brought to you by Half Acre Lager, the best local microbrew I could find at the 7-Eleven on the corner.

• The best case of It Just Works you’re likely to find anywhere outside of Apple: I just bought a Polar heart rate monitor to use during cardio. On a typical cardio day I use three different machines from three different manufacturers, all of which have built-in HR monitors, all of which suck. (They all require you to hold onto something, which may or may not have been cleaned or calibrated right.) Today, though, I walk up to each one of them wearing my new wireless monitor and all three machines immediately pick up its signal. Probably helps that Polar is to sports HR monitors as Apple iPods are to portable music players these days, but still — nice.

• Verdict: despite 40+ minutes of unsimulated sex by the leads, Michael Winterbottom’s 2004 film 9 Songs — about a so-brief-as-to-defy-meaning love affair between a dull Englishman and a crazy American girl who’d be a cipher if she were interesting — is really fucking boring. I feel like it could have at least had some soul if the acting had been better, but of course, to attract better actors Winterbottom would have had to forego the ultra-explicit sex. Which was almost the whole point of the enterprise.

  Having been shamed by my über-cool stylist into giving Winterbottom another chance, next up will be 24 Hour Party People.

• Speaking of England: At the urging of the UK’s Foreign Minister (not to mention pretty much every member of Parliament), Queen Elizabeth has annulled Robert Mugabe’s honorary knighthood. The Queen has customarily given knighthoods to visiting heads of state; Mugabe’s was granted during a state visit in 1994.

• While we’re across the pond: the CEO of Irish low-cost airline Ryanair has promised that their new business-class service would feature “beds and blowjobs.” And yes, that’s exactly what he said.

• Hugh Laurie told the London Times one of the biggest perks of celebrity was the “Burger King gold card”, which entitles a select group of 11 very famous people (including Jennifer Hudson!!!) to free BK hamburgers for life. Laurie’s endorsement tends to prove what we’ve always feared: that English food really must be terrible if it makes Burger King sound appealing.

• Photo of the day: Eddie Murphy’s head traveling down the interstate.