RoBros gets results!

A question for RoBros video technology advisor Mr. Perkins: Approximately how much do you think was spent to produce this? Just ballpark it for me.

The A.P. reports on Ty Alper's lethal-injection study: "Nearly all lethal injection executions have occurred in states where veterinarians are not allowed to use the same method to euthanize animals."

The estimable Ty Alper explains the lethal-injection controversy, now under consideration by the Supreme Court:

If executions do resume, and the courts do not force states to reconsider the three-drug protocol that they all employ, inmates will continue to be paralyzed before they are killed. (The first drug in the protocol is supposed to anesthetize, the second one paralyzes, and the third one kills.) Many people do not know about this aspect of lethal injection. They hear witnesses describe lethal injection as “peaceful,” but don’t realize that such executions have literally been staged to look that way.

Friendblogging: Ty Alper will be on C-SPAN's Washington Journal tomorrow at 9 a.m., talking about the Supreme Court's lethal injection case.

Friendblogging twofer: Reyhan writes about Jake's movie! And I'm the one who gave her Jake's email! I'm a degree of separation! Everybody who enjoys laughter: go see Walk Hard!

Friendblogging redux: Jake, with John C. Reilly, on Fresh Air, talking about Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, which by the way is fucking hilarious.

Friendblogging: The trailer for Jake's new movie, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, starring John C. Reilly.

The TV Set review update: David Denby in the New Yorker.

My friend Jake's movie opens Friday, at least for those of us who live in big coastal metropoles. I have reason to believe that it will be awesome. (New York and Entertainment Weekly think so. UPDATE: And so does A. O. Scott in the NYT, who compares it favorably to The Player and The Larry Sanders Show. UPDATE AGAIN: Slate's Dana Stevens delivers a full-fledged rave.) In the meantime, you can listen to him talking about it with Terry Gross (iTunes, web).

What did you do this week? I added a few thousand words to my novel, and removed some of the words that were already there, for a net gain of perhaps a thousand words. Also I walked the dog a lot, because Tali was out of town, and I watched Friday Night Lights, which I haven't posted about because I've been waiting to come up with something to say about it beyond "This show is surprisingly awesome." My friend Ty, on the other hand, got this guy out of jail. So there you go.

Kevin nation army

My friend Kevin Shay (or, as he's known to the media, "former McSweeney's online editor Kevin Shay") has a charming and funny novel out, The End As I Know It: A Novel of Millennial Anxiety. Set just before the turn of the century, it's about a guy driving across the country trying to convince his loved ones that the Y2K bug is about to destroy civilization.

Remember when all we had to worry about was the Y2K bug? Good times ...

Anyway: you can buy the book at Amazon, or you can check out Kevin's swell website. Fun feature: "On This Day Pre-Y2K" -- a look back at some really nutty prognostications, given an innocent and nostalgic glow by subsequent events.

RoBros legal advisor Ty Alper is guest-blogging today at 4&20blackbirds, "a journal of Montana politics and culture." Since Ty lives in Berkeley and knows nothing whatsoever about Montana politics and culture, this could get interesting.

More friendblogging: A full article on Jake's movie, also in the NYT.

Kasdan wins coveted Best-American-film-Stephen-Holden-was-
able-to-see Award: The NYT's Stephen Holden on Jake's new movie's premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival:

The best of the American films I was able to see, Jake Kasdan's sharp, funny satire The TV Set, features an award-worthy performance by Sigourney Weaver as a gung-ho network executive who sabotages a writer's pilot during its filming.
If the role recalls Faye Dunaway's dragon lady in Network, Ms. Weaver's character camouflages her iron will behind a surface of sugary agreeability in an exceptionally witty portrayal. How perfect is it that at a network convention her character shamelessly gloats over the runaway success of the network's new hit series, a piece of trash called Slut Wars?