Zennie62.com: Permanent Holiday at Jam Factory

Zennie62.com: Permanent Holiday at Jam Factory: "Nikky Raney's first time encounter with Permanent Holiday... Permanent Holiday performed January, 8, 2010, Saturday night at the Jam F..."

Zennie62.com: Permanent Holiday at Jam Factory

Zennie62.com: Permanent Holiday at Jam Factory: "Nikky Raney's first time encounter with Permanent Holiday... Permanent Holiday performed January, 8, 2010, Saturday night at the Jam F..."

Santa Baby 99ers Christmas Unemployment Song

Presenting the Santa Baby 99ers Christmas Unemployment Song, or The Santa Baby 99ers Song, on Christmas Eve.

Donalee King (in photo from Zennie62.com), who goes by Paladinette, at Zennie62.com, created this variation of the classic Christmas Song Santa Baby.

King, a blogger who also has her own blog called Jobless Unite,  is one of the so-called "99ers," those who's unemployment benefits have ran out after the 99-week limit, and seek an extension of benefits, or better yet, a job.

In seeking both, the San Diego resident has become a tireless advocate for the jobless. Her work on this song landed her notice by the LA Times.

The video is below, followed by the lyrics, which are graphic but worth reading and singing...if you dare!

(In fact, if you're in Oakland, California, print out the lyrics, take them down to The Alley at 3325 Grand Avenue, present them to Rod Dibble at the piano, and ask he would accompany you in song. Santa Baby is a song he knows how to play.)




Lyrics to video song Santa Baby - 99ers Style 2010

Congress Baby, the 99ers need a tier 5......to survive

I know you’re HEARTLESS P@#*s But....so what?

My children need some dinner tonight!

The car got repo’d and the rent is awfully late...but wait

You only care for the rich that’s a B*@#H

there’s millions of us dying out here

We can’t afford a Christmas tree

While you’re all buying Cartier at Tiffany

You bailed out banks Greece and Haiti too

I think it’s time the 99ers heard from you

Obama baby, just help the 99ers please

and... don’t tease

Been a really tough year

Out here

I Hope Your change is comin’ tonight

Obama honey, you sold 99ers flat out

no doubt

and now it’s snowing out,

My stomach’s growling

I need some food and shelter tonight

Sherrod honey, Schumer and that Stabenow too

Were through we all trusted you

but senate baby your lies have left us hurtn’ out here

We’re not rich - guess we don’t count

The dirty little secret you won’t talk about

There’ll be no jobs again next Year

It’s time you kicked your senate’s butts into high gear

Congress baby just pretend to care for us poor

once more - come on it’s just a check - so what the heck?

there’s millions of us dying out here!

That’s right I’d rather work than fight

Hurry Congress there’s 99ers dying TONIGHT

Merry Christmas!

Facebook status promotes breast cancer awareness By Nikky Raney

Courtesy of NY Daily News

Many Facebook users may be puzzled when seeing how many of their Facebook friends have a status saying: "I like it on the floor." (or "I like it on *BLANK*")

Along with the many Facebook statuses saying, "I like it on the floor," there are almost as many which ask, "Why does everyone's status say 'I like it on the floor?'"

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month - this viral Facebook status trend is meant to raise awareness of breast cancer. Although "I like it on the floor" may seem to be leading to something sexual, but really it is referring to a purse or handbag according to a blog from  The Washington Post.

There have been many types of breast cancer awareness campaigns that have been questionable (like the ads with the body paint), but this one seems to be more tame than "Save the Tatas."

Time Magazine online explains how unusual this method to raise awareness truly is comparing this status to the one that had gone viral last year:

Remember last year's Facebook campaign where all of your lady friends suddenly had status updates like “Black,” “Red,” or “Polka dots” and no one had any clue what was up? Oh, but then word got around that the updates were the bra colors of choice and the updates were meant to peak interest of those left out of the joke (read: males) in order to raise awareness about breast cancer. Um, ok?

The appeal of posting the status is that it will confuse those who don't already know what it is referring to - which will cause the person to get educated in order to figure out why these statuses are being posted. Clever.

Easy A is more than a teen comedy By Nikky Raney

Courtesy of USA Today

Although sarcastic and completely unrealistic, Easy A is a hilarious movie that can be enjoyed teens and adults alike. The outrageous scenario of Olive, Emma Stone, giving herself the reputation of a “slut” in order to get noticed at high school and accepting money from boys so that they could lie and say that they “got physical” with her is entertaining as long as the audience can accept that the scenario could never happen at an actual high school in the United States.

Easy A can be compared to a present day John Hughes film, with Olive resembling a Molly Ringwald character. The tone of the film is complete sarcasm; the majority of the dialog is all sarcasm based featuring witty one-liners. The movie keeps the audience engaged and laughing throughout its entirety.

In Olive’s English class the book The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is analyzed, and Olive gets very involved with the story line. After the extremely religious Marianne, Amanda Bynes, hears Olivia make up a story to her best friend Rhiannon, Aly Michalka, about losing her virginity Marianne suggests that Olivia embroider an “A” onto her wardrobe (like Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter). The movie pokes fun at Christianity and could possibly be offensive to Christian viewers (but then again the entire movie is based around a girl lying about sleeping around).

The relationship between Olive and her parents is one that most teenagers would love – the sarcasm and witty punch lines are never ending when it comes to Olive, her parents and her adopted brother. At one point her brother, who is black, says that he will not have to worry about the genetics being passed down since he was adopted. The response from the father is, “How did you find out you were adopted?”

Without giving away too much Olive’s reputation grew once she went to a party and pretended to have sex with her friend Brandon, Dan Byrd, who is gay so that the other students would no longer pick on him for his sexual orientation. The two lock themselves in a bedroom and jump on the bed making noises so that the act is believable.

After this more and more boys find out that Olive is letting boys lie about doing things with her and Olive is offered gifts and money. Olive’s reputation gets so out of hand that she buys lots of sexy lingerie and embroiders an “A” onto every piece.

Penn Badgely plays the role of "Woodchuck Todd," Olive's long time crush, and he was Olive's first lie; when they were in eighth grade during a party the two were locked in a bedroom and expected to kiss, but Todd was not ready. Olive agreed to tell the rest of the party that the two had kissed when in fact they had not.

There is much more to this movie than what has been touched upon. Out of five stars this movie is about a four - the comedy is entertaining and is able to poignantly capture the feelings that teenagers feel in high school, but it is easy to get annoyed with how overly quirky and cartoony the characters are.

By Nikky Raney
Journalist & Blogger

Also posted on The Future of Journalism

Academy News: AMPAS Says Oscar Red Carpet Drawing Ends Tonight

You can get a seat over The Red Carpet at The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences (AMPAS) Presentation of The 2011 83rd Annual Academy Awards by entering a randow drawing, right now at www.oscars.org/bleachers. The drawing, which has been active for the last week allows you to be one of the select 700 people to be there live at the Academy Awards' premier pre-event, event.

AMPAS reports:

To be eligible for the random drawing, an individual must complete the application form in its entirety. Applications may only be submitted online. Forms may not be returned via any other method.

Applicants may register for themselves and one guest. Duplicate registrations will not be accepted.

Those whose names are selected in the random drawing will be notified in late September. They will then be required to submit additional information for security purposes prior to final approval. Eligible attendees will receive a confirmation letter in early January with information pertinent to the event.

Only those individuals who have been pre-approved by the Academy will have access to the bleachers. Those who wait overnight to attempt admittance will not be granted entry.

The Academy will not be responsible for securing travel and/or hotel accommodations for bleacher fans.

In previous years, as many as 20,000 fans have applied online for the limited number of red carpet seats.

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2010 will be presented on Sunday, February 27, 2011, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center, and televised live by the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.

Hurry up. It all ends at 9 PM PDT tonight.

3D Summit - Jeffrey Katzenberg Blasts 2D to 3D Movie Conversion

Note: Jeffrey Katzenberg Blasts 2D to 3D Movie Conversion at 3D Summit - This is 13:11 of a 14 minute speech. This video blogger elected to upload all of what I has, rather than edit it. At first, The plan wasn't to record all of his speech, but when it seemed that, just 30 seconds into the speech, Jeff was going to throw and land a haymaker, plans changed. To be candid, the final two minutes have micro-jumps only because of the editing system used vs the computer's random access memory (RAM) that was consumed to take such a large file all at once - need more RAM.  But I wanted you to see what I had, rather than lop it off.  



Universal City, Ca - On Wednesday, DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg was the keynote speaker at the 3D Entertainment Summit at the Hilton Universal City. At first, this blogger expected a standard "State of 3D" speech, but Katzenberg had other ideas. He got up with a plan to throw and land a haymaker.

Katzenberg took direct aim at 2D to 3D film conversion and set the tone for the summit - just what a good keynote speech is supposed to do. He didn't call out Clash Of The Titans by name, but everyone knew what he was talking about. But for good measure, Jeff added Piranha 3D.

(As an aside someone at the 3D Summit, when asked about Piranha 3D's budget later in the day, said "It's about $30 million to $40 million. We'll get their in terms of revenue, but we're waiting for DVD sales." But then the man shrugged and said, "Whatever, I'm not there any more," meaning he not with Dimension Films, who made the moviue.)

Clash Of The Titans was the epic 2010 remake of the man-god v. man fantasy that was made in 1981. First planned as a 2D film, Clash was rushed into 3D conversion after the success of Avatar in 2009. The results were terrible, as noted before.

Clash's conversion was so bad that Avatar Producer / Director James Cameron called it out by name and said that Hollywood should not use 3D just to use it. This is what Jeff is echoing in his speech above but with a step - he's panning 2D to 3D conversion, period.

Jeff said "When it comes to 3D conversion, here's the bottom line: over the years the film industry comes up with new ways to make a bad movie worse. Conversion of 2D to 3D is just the newest." Katzenberg says a bad 3D movie is painful to watch (really, it can give you a headache) and to add insult to injury Hollywood asks the customer to pay for it.

Some of the people responsible for the 2D to 3D conversion were sitting right there in the audience at the 3D Summit, including a man next to me who knew Jeff and admitted to me that he worked on Clash Of The Titans.

That guy was squirming in his chair during the speech. Seriously.

As a closing note, Katzenberg notes that six of the top 10 movies were 3D, and says there's a scarcity of 3D movie screens hampering revenue box office, even though it was healthy for 3D. He also says pricing is not an issue - the public is willing to pay a premium price, as long as it gets a premium experience.  Customers, Katzenberg says, can tell the difference "between Pandora and Piranha."  

This is part one: part two is the question and answer session, which was entertaining in as well. Stay tuned.