Amy's Robot

So here we are in late September, and we're just getting around to writing about this year's Totally Ubiquitous Summer Hit, or TUSH. Usually we try to identify this song in mid-July based on personal observation and cultural saturation, before the fall begins and it's obvious to everyone what song will stand as the one everyone knew and sorta liked that summer.

I guess it's "Fancy". But I came to that conclusion by looking at radio and sales charts and being aware that there's an Australian rapper called Iggy Azalea who people like now, and not really because I heard that song every time I was out over the past three months. This is because I don't go out much these days, and my kid's favorite playground doesn't pipe in Top 40 (thank God.)

My commentary about the video is coming months late, too. Here it is: I love that the video is a remake of all the best scenes in Clueless, but do 17 year-olds of today actually know and love Clueless, which came out while I was in college? I feel like my generation is the intended audience for the "Fancy" video, which strikes me as a misjudgment, since I don't really like the song. It's not a song for me, it's for people who are more into current pop culture, and are who are younger and go out more.

So this is a roundabout way of saying that it's time for this Robot to say goodbye. I'm not sufficiently in touch with TV, music, pop culture, and the peculiarities of everyday life to keep up a blog anymore, so I'll leave it to those who are.

These days I write about movies on Letterboxd, so come find me there. And hopefully we already admire each other's baby pictures on Facebook.

These 12 years have been fun. Thanks for reading!

As you've probably noticed, we're taking a break over here. The recent launch of a new Baby Robot model has us pretty busy, and there's isn't as much time to spend watching movies and musing/complaining about pop culture and political minutiae.

But before we resume our hiatus, a few observations about recent stuff:

The World's End: My favorite of the Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg/Nick Frost trilogy, and the funniest movie I've seen all year. I really like how perfectly they nailed both of the movie's hackneyed genres: Old friends who've grown apart get together for a reunion and learn they still really love each other, despite everything; and Invasion of the alien machines. The way the old rivalries resurface, and tough truths are learned about their friends... and themselves, every detail is perfect.

But the most impressive part of the movie for me is Simon Pegg's performance. The first half-hour especially, where he's simultaneously manic, obnoxious, desperate, pathetic, and hilarious, in one hyper-energetic, repellently appealing spaz-explosion in a Sisters of Mercy t-shirt. He just burns a hole through the screen. It's a performance at about the same energy level as Jack Black's first scene in High Fidelity, but he sustains it through the entire movie. He deserves some kind of award, even though really inspired comic performances like this hardly ever get the recognition they deserve.

Enough Said: I like all Nicole Holofcener's movies, and this one has the same agonizing social awkwardness and flawed but sincere characters that I like in all her stuff. This is one of James Gandolfini's last movie appearances, and it makes me wish he got to do more romantic comedy in his career--he's a big, gruff, hairy love interest, more convincing than you'd think.

And finally Orange is the New Black, the Netflix series. It took a while to get going, and its biggest problem is the main character, who is unappealing and less interesting than the far more colorful and interesting ensemble, but I still like it. A few episodes in, I thought, wow, it's great that there's this show with so many good roles for black and Latina actresses, older, bigger actresses, butch actresses, all roles for women that deviate from the pretty young white norm, that are so often missing from other TV shows and movies. Then I realized: that's because it's set in prison. Oh well.

We'll be back!

Well, it's been 10 years of watching TV, going to the movies, following fluffy political gossip and serious celebrity news, and guessing which famous person is older. Hooray!

It's hard to imagine that 10 years ago, the world wasn't yet flooded with countless websites about pop culture and celebrities and the crazy world we live in. But now it is, and here we still are, doing exactly the same thing as back then. That's the power of brand consistency.

Looking back, I'm not coming up with much in the way of "accomplishments", so instead, let's consider some of the pitfalls other blogs have succumbed to that Amy's Robot has heroically avoided. None of us have lost our jobs due to unscrupulous posts about our bosses. We've technically never lost an advertiser. No Washingtonienne-style sex scandals (still trying!) or embarrassing failed book deals. No Homeland Security investigations (we love America, please don't arrest us) or attacks by Anonymous. I'll take lack of catastrophe as a substitute for actual achievement.

So thanks, everyone, for reading. A tip of my hat to That Fuzzy Bastard, Tim, T-Rock, ooghe, ORStylee, Colin, essbeekay, and Matt S for your many smart and funny comments. Emily and Cushie for years of collaboration, and special acknowledgement to ADM for co-surrogate-birthing this weird little baby.

Now to figure out what to do for the next 10 years, besides my eternal dream of making Who's Fatter?™ into a regular feature.

Hi everybody,

One of the main features of this site is the constant stream of fresh and interesting links over there on the right side of this page. All those links come from a website we made a while ago called Linkit.

We don't talk about it a lot, but the whole idea of that bar is for you to share interesting things you find on the internet with us. It just takes a second: whenever you find something interesting, go to this page, and send it to us. As soon as you submit it, it will appear on Linkit's main page, and if we like the link, it will soon appear on this page, too.

Now, to prevent spam, we do ask you register with Linkit before adding links. This also takes just a second, but it has an additional benefit: Linkit is a great way to keep track of your bookmarks and favorite links even if you are not really motivated to share them with us. You can even make the links you submit to Linkit show up on your own blog or website, since every user's links are available as an RSS feed. Several Linkit users are already using it to do just that.

So, if you have a second, please bookmark Linkit's Add Item page, and use it whenever you find something interesting on the web. (To make this process even faster, we also have a Linkit "bookmarklet" that you can add to your browser's toolbar that will automatically add to Linkit whatever page you happen to be looking at when you click it.) By sending us your links, you'll be helping readers of Amy's Robot find more great stuff on the internet, and you'll be able to keep better track of the stuff you come across online.

If you're interested in learning more about Linkit, you can read this interview with Amy's Robot where we talk all about it, why we created it, and how much we want you all to use it! (While you're there, check out the great features of Ning.com, the site that hosts Linkit.)

Thanks for reading, and please let us know if you have any questions or comments about Linkit or this site!

-Amy's Robot

The whole world fucking sucks, but finally there's a website that lets you do something about it.

Amy's Robot is proud to bring you:

SAVEARRESTEDDEVELOPMENT.COM

Over the past year or so, we've been struggling to keep up with the onslaught of news stories about teachers, coaches, cops, parents, and adult authority figures of all kinds engaging in ill-advised and illegal sexual relationships with their students, neighbors, or friends of their kids. So we decided it was time to give these sick freaks their own blog.

Introducing: Bad Love.

New Hampshire teacher/convicted murderess Pam Smart, Patron Saint of Bad Love

What is Bad Love? It's a combination of many things - bad judgment, abuse of authority, uncontrolled lust and usually, incredible narcissism on the part of at least one party. And it always, always, involves a teenager who doesn't know better, and an adult who really should.

This is their blog.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of material out there. The stories are usually sad and often pathetic, so if that's your thing, Bad Love is for you.

Who do you think will win the election? And by how much?

Well, Amy's Robot is offering you the chance to go on the record with your prediction. Use the form below to enter your prediction for the popular and electoral votes, and then cross your fingers and bite your nails until November 2, when you'll find out who won the presidency, and -- more importantly -- who wins the special prizes for "Most Accurate Prognosticator" from Amy's Robot.

Your guess will instantly be posted on our site, where it can be compared to other predictions and aggregate statistics.

You can also see what others have predicted so far.

Ok, enter your bets!

As of 11/2, predictions are closed!

As our readers surely know, this week the Republican National Convention will take place within blocks of the Amy's Robot Midtown Bureau. We are sure all of our readers are anxiously awaiting our comprehensive coverage of the event.

However, it has become clear to us in recent weeks that the Republican party is determined to include no factual information or content in this convention, or to address the reality of any of the very serious issues that our country faces.

Therefore, unless one of the RNC speakers presents something of substance, for the next week Amy's Robot will cover current events happening in and around Dover, New Hampshire.

For our first day of coverage, we'll leave you with this picture of Dover's own Olympian, Jenny Thompson, cavorting on the beaches of Greece with Michael Phelps. This picture is particularly tragic for the 2/3 of Amy's Robot who might have also had the opportunity to pose for this picture in their bikinis, had our parents just moved one freaking town over so we could attend a high school that had a pool and a swim team. -Emily

Today we are re-introducing the Amy's Robot Link Factory.

For many months, we have taken a break from reader submissions to it. Today we are opening it up again, this time with better features for you and for us.

In case you aren't familiar with it, the Amy's Robot Link Factory is a section of Amy's Robot that allows anyone to submit interesting links. Most submitted links will appear on the front page of the Link Factory where readers can comment on them. We also pick some "highlights" from the links to feature on the right side of this page.

We have also re-enabled comments on the Link Factory, but the comments will no longer appear on the Link Factory page. Instead, if you are interested in reading or writing comments, just click the "comments" link. Feel free to share your views and insights, but keep in mind that we may delete offensive comments, unless they are really funny. We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason. Also, when you write a comment for the first time, we will send you a confirmation email which you must reply to. This is to prevent "comment spam." We won't use your email again after that.

We put a lot of work into creating, and now improving, the Link Factory, so we hope you like it! And we hope you use it.

After the earth-shattering success of our beloved game, Who's Older?™, we're pleased to launch another game in which readers can pit their knowledge of celebrities against the ravages of time and ill-advised career choices. We bring you

Who'dat? will present you with a photograph of a celebrity in which the celebrity is more challenging to identify than you might expect. ADM is the master of locating such photographs, (including this one of Chelsea Clinton from a few years back) so I'm sure he'll initiate a few rounds of Who'dat?

To play the game, first try to determine the identity of the celebrity below. Then simply click on the photo below to see if you're right.

In any case, after 2+ years in which we've produced over 2600 posts, one of us -- namely, me -- has decided to scale back involvement in the site.

For the last couple of months, I've lacked the time and energy to contribute much that I thought was interesting or valuable, so I wanted to formally step away before I damaged our site's hard-earned reputation as a purveyor of trash, snipery, and traitorous politicking.

Going forward, our friend Emily will take over, and our other friend Andrew will contribute from time to time, and of course Amy will continue with her usual zeal. I'll still add stuff to the Amy's Robot Link Factory, and every now and then, I may write something, too. I'm also taking on an advisory role, crafting mission statements, business plans, and organizational flowcharts for the Amy's Robot Information Superhighway Manifest Destiny Corporation, the holding company of this site. And I'll be continuing my award-winning* work on The Ledger, my ill-conceived effort to thoroughly document each of the 320 or so episodes of Law & Order.

Before I start all that, however, I'm looking forward to spending more time with my family -- and by "family," I mean my Tivo and my porn collection.

Thanks for reading.

*Winner, Most Tedious Blog Award, 2003.

Intellectual terrorists have hijacked Amy's Robot...probably due to our excoriating treatment of J. Lo, Jason Biggs, and Courtney Love.

That's the price you pay for the truth. From our host:

One of our machines is currently under a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack. The large amount of traffic from this attack caused our network to unreachable at times. This downtime is affecting all customer services. We have notified our upstream providers and they have begun to block traffic to the attacked IP. We apologize for any inconvenience this may be causing you, and we will make a second announcement as soon as a solution has been completed.

Don't forget about the most gigantic fireworks display ever(?) tonight in Central Park: 11,000 shells in 9 seconds. Then go home.

Like a flash mob, except without all the BS.

Update: Sort of disappointing from where I was. Video footage coming soon.

Amy's Robot is a blog that is mainly about entertainment, media, politics, and culture, all with something of a New York slant.

Amy and ADM co-founded this site in March 2002. Two years later, Emily joined us, and ADM shifted his focus to behind-the-scenes matters. In August 2007, Cushie came on board.

Amy's Robot is one of several affiliated sites, including ScaryNY, The Ledger, Bad Love, Thousand Robots, and our link sharing site, Robot Linky. Links were formerly posted on Linkit, and links prior to 11/07 are there. We have been featured in the online ventures of USA Today, E!, the Wall Street Journal, Ziff-Davis television, and numerous other publications and media outlets.

Extras

• Robot Linky. Robot Linky is a link sharing ("social bookmarking") website we created that lets you share your favorite links with us and with other readers and users of Linky and Amy's Robot. You can use Robot Linky to store your own favorite links, generate RSS feeds from them, and see what your friends are linking to. We take our favorite user-submitted links and post them on the main page of Amy's Robot. When we do so, we will credit you.
• Feedback. If you have an opinion about a specific post, please post it in the comments for that post. If you have an opinion or comment about the site in general, please email us.
• RSS/XML. We have feeds in RSS 1.0, 2.0, and Atom. We have an RSS 2.0 feed for the Linkit, too. Not sure what RSS is all about? Find out.
• Friendster. We set up a profile for this blog at Friendster. Add us as a friend, then meet other readers. Our first name is amy's and our last name is robot.
• Design. The site runs on PHP5, MySQL, and Movable Type 3.2. We changed from Blogger to Movable Type in December 2003.

Comments Policy

We accept comments on posts on this blog and on Robot Linky. We encourage you to comment, but keep in mind we may delete or edit your comment for any reason. We usually do so because the comment is off-topic, or offensive. Please don't comment without understanding this.

To control spam, we use TypeKey to manage users. TypeKey is a centralized user management service from Six Apart/Movable Type. Once you sign up on TypeKey (which just takes a second), you can comment on any TypeKey-enabled site. We wish we could have comments that didn't involve signing in, but we were getting spammed too heavily and felt TypeKey was the best solution.

Privacy

We do not store any identifying information. We sometimes temporarily store IP addresses and referring pages, and use some scripts and sitemeter to sort this information. We are using Google Analytics on a trial basis. Google Analytics places a temporary cookie on your computer. We don't know yet what Google is doing with this cookie, so we recommend you delete your cookies every now and then.

Other People

• low culture
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• television without pity