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[Thad]

Show of hands, here: who still listens to radio?

People who own cars with working radios.

[Brentai]

Assuming they're not using their iPods, CD players, or tape players iPod tape deck extensions.

When I had to drive for two hours a day I used the time to learn Japanese.  Ore wo baito!

[Royal☭]

Assuming they're not using their iPods, CD players, or tape players iPod tape deck extensions.

These things are foreign to my car.

[Brentai]

Mine too.   

[TA]

Assuming they're not using their iPods, CD players, or tape players iPod tape deck extensions.

Hey, some of us watch TV on a GPS that takes SD cards.  Couple episodes of Simpsons really takes the edge off a commute.

[Brentai]

I'd yell at you for that, but trying to translate from another language is probably even more distracting.  Carry on.

[Arc]

Then the edge returns from the windshield glass embedding into the skin, as the limp body careens forward onto the wet pavement.

[Kashan]

Mmmm. Schadenfreude 

[Romosome]

Those horrible Bratz dolls are going away forever.

These things didn't actually bump me towards "hate" until I saw the "Bratz Babies" spinoff.  The phrase "baby bottle with bling" is horrible enough to behold and the entire thing was this horrifying conflation of baby antics and sexy makeup-ridden mall sluttery.

Seriously, it makes me sound like some kind of grandpa to tell it, but look it up on youtube.  I don't want to link it.

[Disposable Ninja]

There's actually a lot about the Bratz shut down that bugs me, though. First off, it was a fucking court order that did them in -- which in itself bugs me crapless. Secondly? Mattel got the court order because apparently the guy who designed the Bratz dolls was working for Mattel when he started working on them. I haven't been able to determine the exacts, like whether or not the guy in question even submitted his designs to Mattel in the first place, but the whole thing comes off like a big fat loogie in the face of creator's rights.

And of course there are all the other little ramifications. Bratz was popular, in major part, due to the fact that they were pretty all-inclusive. At times gross and sexualized, yeah, but with them everything didn't revolve around the pretty blonde girl, and I've never heard about any girls starving themselves in order to obtain "Bratz" proportions.

[Thad]

There's actually a lot about the Bratz shut down that bugs me, though. First off, it was a fucking court order that did them in -- which in itself bugs me crapless. Secondly? Mattel got the court order because apparently the guy who designed the Bratz dolls was working for Mattel when he started working on them. I haven't been able to determine the exacts, like whether or not the guy in question even submitted his designs to Mattel in the first place, but the whole thing comes off like a big fat loogie in the face of creators' rights.

If he signed a contract saying "Everything I create belongs to Mattel" then it's pretty open-and-shut.  Now, if you want to equate that kind of contract to a sort of nasty indentured servitude, that's a conversation we can have, but he still signed it.

And of course there are all the other little ramifications. Bratz was popular, in major part, due to the fact that they were pretty all-inclusive. At times gross and sexualized, yeah,

What are the times they're NOT?

but with them everything didn't revolve around the pretty blonde girl,

If you say so.  I can't conjure a mental image of any of them that aren't blond.

and I've never heard about any girls starving themselves in order to obtain "Bratz" proportions.

My favorite Bratz description ever, via AV Club:

Barbie may boast a figure out of Russ Meyer’s fevered imagination but Bratz are the first line of mass-produced dolls that’d probably go down on their owner’s dads if they bought them a mojito or two.

[Brentai]

Error: critical failure while attempting to care.  Sarcasm aborted.

[Disposable Ninja]

If he signed a contract saying "Everything I create belongs to Mattel" then it's pretty open-and-shut.  Now, if you want to equate that kind of contract to a sort of nasty indentured servitude, that's a conversation we can have, but he still signed it.

Well, yes, I do consider that sort of contract an incredibly vile sort of business practice.

Anyway, as I said, though: I don't know the particulars. He very well may have signed such a contract, but his Bratz designs may have never even gotten past the "doodles in his private sketchbook" stage in development by the time he left Mattel.

[Büge]

If Mattel's contracts are anything like Disney's though, he's still screwed, DN.

[Disposable Ninja]

Well, yes, I kind of guessed that part when Mattel got a court order that destroyed an entire multi-billion dollar company.

[Romosome]

While I understand why businesses have the "stuff you invent while working for us is ours" contracts, it's definitely a really fuzzy area with potential for abuse.

And DN is right in that the product itself shouldn't really be taken into account when talking about whether this sets a good precedent or not.

Having said that, this is the Schadenfreude topic and I want to restate that this is what was destroyed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUbDbugyzHg

[Arc]

Truly dark times have befallen us.

[Thad]

Cheney pulls muscle while packing, will be in a wheelchair for the inauguration.

[Brentai]

Even Cheney's own body wants to kick him in the ass on the way out.

[François]

I'm honestly quite surprised Cheney does his own moving.