The Grand Boulevard: Stately, August and Baronial

Film School: Viral Finance Videos?

2008-04-03T12:33:00.000-07:00

Consider this next time you look to the web for finance advice:

The Balkan Falcon (or why you should move to Serbia)

2008-03-10T19:21:00.000-07:00

Nenand Kristic is the third most eligible bachelor in Serbia, according to Serbia's version of People. Below the intrepid Ian Eagle and Mark Jackson explain -- or try to explain.

Reasons You Should Move to Serbia:
1. The third-most eligible bachelor is Nenad Kristic
2. Now that Kosovo has declared independence from Serbia, the list of Serbia's Most Eligible Bachelors, already quite questionable, has been further depleted.
3. As far as names of countries go, Montenegro sounds like it has elegant casinos.
4. According to his blog, the third-most eligible bachelor has a girlfriend, meaning the #3 spot is currently vacant:

I have a girlfriend. I’ve had a girlfriend for five years and she’s really great. That’s the first time I’ve heard about that. I never heard about that and I’m really surprised. I think it’s not really true. I need to look on the internet and make sure. What can I say? I have a girlfriend; I’m not married but I’m living with my girlfriend. I don’t know if that’s true. I’m going to ask Ian Eagle about that; maybe he just made up that story." - Nenad Kristic

King of Drolls?

2008-03-10T14:28:00.000-07:00

It's been too long since you've heard from the Baron. To make up for it, please enjoy one of my favorite bands.

The Grand Boulevard Research Department has discovered the MySpace page of the Norwegian band, King of Trolls. It's the best Norse Legend-based song since Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" (that's the link to that personal favorite). If you're in Larvik in June, check them out.

Vigo Fixes the NBA Playoff System

2008-02-12T17:18:00.000-08:00

Hey y'all. This is your ol' buddy Vigo (friends call me Veeg!) here to hit you with some thoughts on the fact that this season, the NBA could have some lousy-ass playoff teams. Answer me this question: who would you rather see playing the Celitcs in Round 1, a seven-games-under-.500 Nets team or Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady? (Veeg is being rhetorical and shit)

So I thought of a scheme to fix the flawed playoff system and ensure only the best teams get a crack at the title, while the mediocre ones go home. Here it is:

If at the end of the regular season any of the top eight teams in either conference has a record below .500, that team will be replaced in the playoffs by next-highest-ranked non-playoff team in the other conference, provided that that team has a record of .500 or above.

Got it?

So, for example, if the season ended today (Feb. 11), the bottom two Eastern Conference teams (Atlanta, 21-26; New Jersey, 22-29) would be replaced as the 7th and 8th seeds in the East, respectively, by ninth place Houston (30-20) and tenth place Portland (28-22). Washington (24-25) would remain as the 6th seed in the East because no other Western teams have records of .500 or above. This could create a potentially exciting last game of the season for a team that's one game below .500. We'd have to think of a name for it -- something like the ".500 Death Match" except better.

Now isn't that better?

Next week, Vigo takes on the BCS!

A Haiku From Glenn

2008-02-11T17:01:00.000-08:00

Hi! I'm Glenn... I'm so glad to contribute to my friend The Baron's blog! It's about time you started blogging, Mister! You've got quite a few tales to tell, my undead friend. Anypoo...(LOL!) when I'm not doing employee reviews, heading up the Galactic Council or "chillaxing" with Skippy, my golden retriever, I like to write Haiku. By the way, Vlad, a Haiku is a form of poetry! Look it up! (Vlad's soooo grumpy the time, especially if he hasn't eaten human flesh in a while!) So, here's one I wrote about LARPing:

Eight-level Mage skills
But you live in mom's basement
Live Action Role Play?

(...to come: Dating Advice from Vlad the Impaler)

Le Monde Du LARPing

2008-02-09T09:01:00.000-08:00

The Baron Recommends: LARPing. Short for Live Action Role-Playing, LARPing offers today's youth the ability to explore some of mankind's most noble -- and forgotten -- occupations. Hell, it used to be that the world's universities turned out more aspiring Mages, Dwarfs, Paladins and Thieves than doctors or lawyers!

The below video clip should emphasize the appeal of LARPing. I'm heartened by the enthusiasm of the kids in this video. But, they are rank amateurs. Where did they learn how to summon the Elemental Powers of Nature, the University of Phoenix? They call that the Art of Necromancy? Clearly, they're the product of public schools (Choate, for one, has a great Necromancy Club)! The Baron says, Leave No LARPer Behind!

Things Have Been Said

2008-02-06T18:00:00.000-08:00

As a member of a royal bloodline dating back to Antiquity, the Baron has heard a lot of things. Hearsay, innuendo, vile plots against noble kingdoms. Bruce Willis' solo album.

By way of introductions to this blog, I've complied a list of memorable things I've been told by my Exes or the people I, the Baron Augustus Von Nostren, IV, have otherwise dated, met or expressed some sort of interest in the last 29 years of my immortal wanderings in this earthly realm. Little, if anything, has been altered in the below statements (some syntax has been changed slightly, for clarity purposes). Instead of explaining, why a member of an ancient and noble race of God-men would deign to start a "weblog," I'll let the below utterances utter for themselves regarding how modern society has treated the Baron.

A Compendium of Things Communicated to Me By Exes or Near-Exes:

"You can't argue with feelings; You're misinterpreting my tone; You can eff all the fat chicks you want now!; I didn't hit you! You hit me all the time!; I am dating "Suspect" now, not you; That's just the way girls talk; You'll never be successful; You complete me – at least partially; I can communicate with dead people; Why are you being so distant? Let me in; I'm making a feature-length film about people's hands; I'm in the hospital. I had an ovarian cyst that ruptured last night during sex; If you leave, I will tell the police that you hit me; Thanks for committing me when I was suicidal ; We're just in different places in our lives; I think we should just go on separate adventures;
I have this thing where I pull out all of my body hairs one by one; I think you and I have a lot of potential; I normally date guys who are a little gayer than you; I normally date guys who have a little more "Eff you, corporate America!" to them; I voted for Bush in 2000; if you voted for Nader in a swing state, I'd break up with you; I remember we departed from our bodies; Lets not have a threesome, it will distract us from our relationship; Your sense of humor is not funny, it's just insulting; You look like Gelman from the Regis and Kelly Show; you look like Bob Saget; you look like Topher Grace with bad skin; you look Jewish; why aren't you jewish?; I would describe it as "average-to-small"; I wouldn't necessarily call it small; It's better that its not that big, actually; I can't have sex with someone I don't love; Your views on sex are archaic; You label me, you negate me!; All sports are just misplaced male homosexual yearnings; I want to be the next Susan Sontag; I want to be the next Anne Sexton, except for the suicide thing; I really like Kid Rock; Do you have any tats?; You'll never be happy unless you're "wrestling with the angels" like Jacob did in the Old Testament; You're soooo nice!; I usually only date philosophers**; tell me the most fascinating thing about you..."

The Baron's Annex of Things Communicated to Others, but More or Less Overheard:
** I usually only date philosophers; If I were asked to label myself in terms of a spiritual persuasion, I would say that I'm an independent mystic; Recently, I've been seduced by the Sufi mystics.