Woody Mosby, a 59-year-old semi-retired architect, got to know the concrete corridor between Dunkin’ Donuts and tracks 1 & 2 of Philadelphia’s Suburban train station really well this Easter weekend. Mosby was registering voters on behalf of Barack Obama, and by his count he’d gotten more than 130 forms filled out by Monday afternoon. “The deadline’s today, register to vote!” Mosby, in an Oxford shirt and slacks, shouted over a flutist — a lifelong Republican Mosby had already converted — busking nearby. When people stopped he not only offered help filling out their forms, he gave them his pitch on why he changed his registration from Independent to Democrat to vote for the Illinois senator. “He’s the greatest breath of fresh air I’ve seen in eight years, and possibly in my whole voting career,” Mosby said.
Despite the hard work of dedicated volunteers like Mosby, Pennsylvania’s April 22 closed primary — in which only registered Democrats may vote — is a problem for Obama, who has done better in states where Republicans and Independents can just show up at polls and register on-site. In an attempt to compensate, the Obama campaign for weeks has been running a quiet but massive effort in Pennsylvania to register tens of thousands of new Democrats, many of them traditional Independents and Republicans but also new voters. To the exclusion of virtually all else, his 150 campaign staffers and more than 2,000 volunteers across 25 offices have focused the power of Obama’s grassroots organization on the registration effort, which ended at midnight Monday night when the state closed its books.
It’s impossible to tell how many of the newly registered voters are Obama supporters — Hillary Clinton’s campaign also made a big “March Madness Final Four Days” push to register voters, and she made surprising inroads with Republicans and independents in recent contests in Texas and Mississippi. But there is no denying that there has been a huge and sudden groundswell of registered Democrats.

time.com

Wow, I don’t know about this one. Mila Kunis is apparently going to star as an assassin alongside Mark Wahlberg who plays the title character in Max Payne for director John Moore and 20th Century Fox.
The film is an adaptation from the Rockstar videogame in which Wahlberg plays Payne, a cop haunted by the tragic loss of his family who finds himself in the thick of a conspiracy when he investigates a series of murders. Kunis will play an assassin who teams up with the title character to avenge her sister’s death.
Look at the girl to the left. Does she look like an assassin?
Who knows, it could work, however I am not a huge fan of John Moore as a director (The Omen remake was awful) and a cutie like Kunis as an assassin just doesn’t fit.
Watcha think? Can Kunis carry off a role as an assassin?
I think that Mark Wahlberg will do a good job as Max, however, I don’t think that Mila will be able to do any good as Mona Sax. I just don’t see it happening.
Overall, I’m nervous about whether they will be able to do the story of the game justice. Max Payne has a very strong Noir element that makes it stand out from other shooters. I’d like to see that happen in the movie. As far as the rating goes, eh, we’ll see. The body count in the game is over 600, with lots of adult language sprinkled around. That definitely calls for an ‘R’, but it can probably be done ok in ‘PG-13′.
Yeah, I am not sure about the rating and if they have said they are going for a PG-13 or not. Hopefully Fox will try and make up for Hitman and give us a good R-rated videogame adaptation. The John Moore aspect worries me still and the noir aspect of the film even worries me more, wish I had thought of that. In the hands of a director such as Moore, noir can be tricky, especially if he tries too hard.

ropeofsilicon.com

LIVE: Bob Mould Runs Through Every Era Of A 25-Year Career
Tuesday March 11, 2008 @ 03:00 PM
by Steve McLean
The last Canadian Music Week performance I saw ended after 4 a.m. on Sunday morning, and I won’t catch my first band at South By Southwest until early Wednesday afternoon. The between-music festival blues were starting to kick in and I needed a live music fix. Luckily, Bob Mould was playing a 20-minute walk from my house at the Mod Club on Monday night to provide a remedy.
But first I had to catch 15 minutes of San Francisco’s Halou — a quintet fronted by a young woman in a prom dress. Her somewhat ethereal voice could have benefited from backing harmonies, and the band’s music seemed to drone on a bit without really going anywhere. You can say Halou, but I was happy to say goodbye.
Mould walked on stage at 10:15 p.m. along with a bassist, keyboard player and drummer. The 47-year-old singer/guitarist has lost a lot of weight and looks almost buff enough to get in the ring with some of the wrestlers he used to write scripts for when he took some time off from music a decade ago.
“The Act We Act,” from Mould’s early ’90s band Sugar, opened the set. “A Good Idea,” one of Sugar’s best known (and possibly best) song, followed — and was played faster than on record. The vintage aggressive rock sound was still evident, which was a good omen for what was to come.
A track from the solo catalogue, “I Hate Alternative Rock,” was ironically succeeded by Mould’s 1989 alternative rock hit, “See A Little Light,” which had more edge and power than the original. Another Sugar standout, “Hoover Dam,” kept the momentum flowing for one more song before Mould tossed off a few less vital tunes from his somewhat disappointing new solo effort, District Line. Sugar’s “Your Favorite Thing” was the high point of the mild mid-show lull, which prompted an audience member to tell Mould to speed things up.

chartattack.com