Quantcast
Channel: someecards.com
Viewing all 38991 articles
Browse latest View live

Why—oh god, why—are Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen getting sued? Intern lawsuits explained.

0
0

Objection! The defendants are too fashionable!

Would you sue these faces? (via Getty)

You might have heard that Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are getting sued. And not by John Stamos on grounds of career jealousy. A former intern who worked for their fashion label, The Row, filed a class action lawsuit saying that she was was unlawfully not paid. 

What's up with that? Should she have been paid? Are unpaid internships legal? Will articles ever respect Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's desire not to be referred to as the "Olsen twins"? Let's investigate.

The intern who started the lawsuit, Shahista Lalani, says she worked 50 hours a week from May to September 2012. According to the New York Daily News, her work included "inputting data into spreadsheets, making tech sheets, running personal errands for paid employees, organizing materials, cleaning, photocopying and sewing." Lalani says she should have been paid at least a minimum wage.

Mary-Kate and Ashley very stylishly disagree. A spokesperson for their company, Dualstar, released a statement that I like to imagine being read aloud in a tired, sighing voice:

"As an initial matter, Dualstar is an organization that is committed to treating all individuals fairly and in accordance with all applicable laws. The allegations in the complaint filed against Dualstar are groundless, and Dualstar will vigorously defend itself against plaintiff’s claims in court, not before the media. Dualstar is confident that once the true facts of this case are revealed, the lawsuit will be dismissed in its entirety."

Well what does the law say? A lot of conflicting things. Typical judges, am I right? Make up your mind already, justices. Not all of our jobs give us the luxury of being so wishy-washy. Can you imagine what would happen if I constantly changed my stance on who I think should be in Taylor Swift's squad?

The issue of unpaid internships first became a "hot topic," legally speaking, when two interns from the movie Black Swan sued Fox. In 2013, a judge ruled in the interns' favor and laid out strict criteria (which match the Department of Labor's rules) for who can be considered an unpaid intern. The New York Times explains:

Those rules say unpaid internships should not be to the immediate advantage of the employer, the work must be similar to vocational training given in an educational environment, the experience must be for the benefit of the intern and the intern’s work must not displace that of regular employees.

So basically, you can only be an unpaid intern if you're actually learning something and you're not doing work that an employee would otherwise do. Cool, let's get paid! As 'N Sync once famously sang, "Money money money money."

But wait. Don't cash in your hundreds of dollars yet. A different judge, who's more important, just vacated the decision from Sad Interns v. Natalie Portman's Id Ballerina. Just last month, a federal appeals court (which is of course, a very serious, prestigious court) set out a looser criteria for who can be an unpaid intern. The new ruling says that employee status depends on a "primary beneficiary test." This means, according to The New York Times, that "the worker can be considered an employee only if the employer benefits more from the relationship than the intern." 

So was your internship better for you, or for the huge movie studio that's getting free short-term Xerox labor? Figure it out, because that's how a court would decide if it's legal.

Meanwhile, since the first Black Swan case, many huge companies have had to settle with their own spunky suing gangs of unpaid interns—Elite Model Management for $450,000, Condé Nast for $5.8 million, NBC Universal for $6.4 million, and Viacom for $7.2 million. (Disclosure: I was an unpaid intern at several of the aforementioned companies, and I don't think I turned in the right forms to get any money.)

I didn't go to law school (can you believe that?), but it seems pretty obvious that interns do actual work deserving of pay, and that industries shouldn't continue to shut out entry-level applicants who need to actually make money at their jobs. So what did we learn here? Unpaid internships are of questionable legality, and we should all get in touch with our sensual Black Swan sides to access our full creative potential.

Oh, and the Olsens will probably end up settling unless they can show that just being near them benefited the intern more than inputting data and making tech sheets benefited Dualstar.


Iggy Azalea lip-synced suspiciously well on 'Lip Sync Battle.'

0
0

Watch rapper Iggy Azalea perform "Teenage Dirtbag" in an unprecedented attempt at lip-syncing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt9SEmxgGNw

Actually, I don't think that Iggy lip-syncs all that much, or no more than any pop star probably has to for technical reasons now and then. A lot of her lyrics are so fast, and basically just talking (as opposed to hitting those high notes). It seems like as much work to mouth the words convincingly as to say them.

On the other hand, her boyfriend and competitor Nick Young seems completely incompetent as a lip-syncer! It's like he heard he was gonna be on the show in the limo they took to the studio. Get it together, dude. Your girlfriend is slaying you.

Proposal: Let's replace all TV show audio with Kristen Wiig and Fred Armisen dubbing fake dialogue.

0
0

How else are people in other English-speaking countries supposed to decipher American late-night television?

https://youtu.be/mprpz_UPvz8

Remember when Kristen Wiig and Fred Armisen used to make up songs on SNL as Garth and Kat, and it was the best? This is like that, but with dubbing and accents. Kristen Wiig was a guest on Late Night with Seth Meyers last night, and she explained to Meyers that she and Armisen are actually in charge of recording voiceovers for his show when it airs in other countries. I would watch full-length TV shows and movies of this. They're having fun, so I'm having fun.

Article 190

Article 189

Article 188

This homeless student is saying goodbye to his friends' couches and hello to Cambridge.

0
0

Jacob Lewis got into Cambridge after two impossible years of hard work.

Get ready for another four years of painstaking work. (via Wales Online)

Jacob Lewis dropped out of school at 17 because he was sick of dealing with bullies and wanted to start making money. He landed a job in finance and got his own place, but after working for a few years, "felt he had missed out" when he saw his friends graduate. Lewis decided to go back to school, where an administrator told Lewis that he had a shot at getting into Cambridge. Lewis got an interview, and the school agreed to admit him — if he received top grades in four areas of the A-levels, the UK entrance exams. 

In order to make it happen, Lewis worked 24 hours a week and spent 12 hours a day in the library studying. But the money he was making wasn't enough for him to keep renting his own place, and he was unable to stay with his family, so he slept on friends' couches instead. He maintained this schedule for two years, and completed his A-levels with flying colors, scoring 100% on history and law. According to Jacob:

“I’m so incredibly grateful to the college for all they did for me. It’s been a trying time but it has been worth it. [...] I’m absolutely delighted with my results and I hope this shows Welsh students that with hard work and dedication dreams can come true.”

He seemed pretty stoked, to say the least:

This was taken a second before he suddenly transformed into an eagle. (via Wales Online)

A hotel dealt with a mattress someone died on the way you deal when you spill wine on the couch.

0
0

"If you pay extra, we can give you our signature 'no-people-have-died-on-this-mattress' guarantee."

"Keep quiet about this, son." (via Thinkstock)

A group of black Days Inn workers in Tampa are suing their former employer for discrimination, in addition to the "other hardships" they faced on the job. Those hardships? They allege that they had to deal with guests' blood and vomit without proper biohazard protection, and that they were refused the proper vaccinations for dealing with contaminated linens and towels. The most egregious allegation, however, has to do with the instructions they were given for handling the room of someone who had their last days at their Days Inn. They claim that their employers forced them to just flip over the mattress where a corpse had been lying, and prepare the room for new guests.

Ew! That's disgusting. Seriously, at least spray it down with some Febreze as well.


Do you think Will Smith rebooting 'Fresh Prince' is a bad idea? Well, it's not your decision!

0
0

Did you just think about the 'Fresh Prince' theme song? Congratulations, now it's stuck in your head for two weeks.

https://youtu.be/1nCqRmx3Dnw

Maybe it was inevitable: Will Smith is developing a reboot of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. According to TVLine, the new show would be "a present-day family comedy that puts a new spin on the fish-out-of-water tale while maintaining the spirit of Fresh Prince." The show is still in early stages of development by Smith's production company, Overbrook Entertainment.

I know reboots are all the craze right now, but is this the best idea? Fresh Prince is such a nineties show that it has the word "fresh" in the title. And if you're going to do a show with a similar premise in 2015, let's just say that it better delicately and thoroughly explore issues of race and class. And of course have a long, explanatory theme song, a Tatyana Ali cameo, and a prominently featured modernized twist on the Carlton dance.

Weekend

The 5 stages of accidentally sitting in Amtrak’s Quiet Car with your 1-year-old.

0
0

1. Horror.

“Oh dear god, what have we done?” I whispered as my husband pointed out the “Quiet Car” sign at the end of the aisle.

(via John Kannenberg/Flickr)

The Quiet Car, if you are not aware, is a feature offered by Amtrak to prove that they are the luxury rail option, not to be confused with sweaty, wifi-less, chewing-gum-covered New Jersey Transit.

Even on the weekend—we were traveling back from Philly to New York on a Sunday—a car is reserved in each train so that the most self-important Amtrak riders who aren’t willing to pay for Business Class can have a place to loudly tell other people to be quiet because this is the Quiet Car.

Sitting there with a baby is a horrible faux pas, and we would never have done it, I swear, but we’d just walked through the entire train until we finally found two seats together. We’d spent ten minutes shoving our enormous toddler car seat, the separate cart we use to drag it around, a duffel bag, and a backpack into the overhead storage, taken our screaming kid out of his carrier and settled—sweaty and exhausted—into our seats, when my husband spotted the sign.

“Fuuuuuck,” I said—quietly. And then, “I’m not moving. I don’t care.”

 

2. Resentment.

Luckily, the first person to get told off in the Quiet Car was a woman on her phone.

“You need to hang up. Quiet Car,” an older woman across the aisle told her brusquely. The woman on the phone got up, announcing loudly that she was leaving to find a “louder car.” Tensions were high.

“Excuse me,” I thought about saying to the older woman. “You’re rustling your Financial Times too loudly. Quiet Car.” I didn’t say it, though, because my husband hates when I say obnoxious things to strangers in public, and I love and respect him.

My dream that this afternoon would go down in family lore as the one-and-a-half hour block that my kid uncharacteristically decided to sit quietly and look out the window was dashed in about two minutes when he started screeching about nothing.

The woman and man in front of me sighed exasperatedly.

“Shhh,” I told him, despite the fact that his cognitive development hasn’t yet reached the stage where he can modify his behavior so Mommy and Daddy don’t have to have an altercation with strangers. I just didn’t want to be that parent who doesn’t do anything when their kid screeches.

He screeched more. More loud sighing and turning around from our neighbors. Is there anything more shaming than a half-turned-around head?

“Everyone in the Quiet Car is a huge asshole,” I texted my sister, exaggerating slightly. “Naturally,” she replied, and my phone beeped. It beeped! I must have taken it off silent at some point. Babies can be forgiven, but people who don’t put their phones on vibrate? Inexcusable.

“Maybe we should move,” my husband said.

“I’ll go look for an open seat,” I said. When he didn’t say, “That’s okay, sweetie, you’re tired. I’ll take the baby and you sit here with the silent grown-ups and read your book,” I took the kid and left.

 

3. Confusion.

As I walked back through full car after full car, seething with every bump and jostle—How dare they intimidate us into leaving our seats? My child needs a seat, for safety! And anyway, it’s not like they’re paying more to sit there. They haven’t earned anything!—I stumbled upon a couple with a crying baby, a little younger than mine. We locked eyes, a glance so full of understanding and compassion that I briefly experienced nirvana.

“How old?” I asked.

“Eight months,” they answered.

“Should we hang out?” I said wryly, and my new best friends and I laughed together.

Their annoying baby was crying, so we moved on, finally finding a seat that of course some a-hole had their bag on because people don’t care about other people anymore.

I could tell that people here didn’t want us around either—the heavy sighs, the rolling eyes, the grimacing through fake sleep—and I silently rehearsed the lines I’d give them if they complained.

“Where do you want me to go then?”

“What do you want from me? I’m not going to sit at home until my kid’s an adult.”

“I have just as much of a right to be here as you do.”

“How would you treat someone who had a disability?”

“The world won’t end because you didn’t have a peaceful ride through North Jersey.”

“You don’t like the noise?” I’d growl. “Go sit in the Quiet Car.”

Yeah, that’s what I would say. That’s what I’d say if anyone had the nerve to give me shit about bringing my kid on the train! That’d show them! That’d show all of them!

Actually, come to think of it, why hadn’t anyone said anything to us yet? Couldn’t they at least have the decency to give me an excuse to feel self-righteous?

How dare they.  

Unrealistic standards perpetuated by stock photo companies. (via Thinkstock)

4. Acceptance.

After 45 minutes of bouncing and reading and shushing, it was time to return to the Quiet Car and thrust my 1-year-old unceremoniously into my husband’s arms. He took off, and suddenly, there I was. Alone, an empty seat beside me, in a gloriously noise-free environment. Nothing to do but read my book and—

“Wah! Wah!”

Oh come on. Someone else had a newborn in the Quiet Car? Really?

The woman in front of me made livid hand gestures to the man beside her, who shrugged as if to say, “Even in the Quiet Car, there is a measure of uncertainty to life, my dear one.”

“Someone’s else’s kid is crying. Come back whenever,” I texted my husband.

“The magic of the Quiet Car is broken,” I told my son when they returned. “Go nuts.”

As we pulled into the station and people started collecting their bags, a strange thing happened. One by one, strangers started telling us what a “sweet” and “good” baby we had, and how sorry they were that we’d had to keep him quiet.

“Oh yeah? Then where the fuck were you back there?” My husband responded (later on, when we talked about what we should have said then).

“First they came for the Socialists…” I began to recite (in my head). And before you ask, yes, I do think the Amtrak Quiet Car is an appropriate time for a Nazi comparison.

How the Quiet Car felt for two blissful minutes. (Thinkstock)

5. Superiority.

The train stopped, and we got off, feeling triumphant, in a ragged sort of way.

We took the subway home from Penn Station because we thought it might be easier than installing and uninstalling the car seat in a cab and because we are morons who deserve what we get.

As I struggled to stay upright in a sea of our unbalanced crap, a man with headphones on gave my screaming child a dirty look.

You can’t touch me, I thought. There are no rules on the motherfucking subway.

At the next stop, two drunk women got on the train. “What are you listening to?” one of them asked him, removing his headphones to check. “Sorry about her,” the other one said, giggling and pulling her friend away.

And that, dear reader, is what makes New York City great. No matter where you go, there’s always someone more annoying than you.

Pharrell demands a framed photo of Carl Sagan for every concert, and that's kind of awesome.

0
0

Pharrell is a cool dude. Carl Sagan was a cool dude. And if there's one thing we know about cool dudes, it's that they love having framed photos of other cool dudes around.

It's a 100% true, not-made-up-for-right-now fact that Obama keeps a picture of James Dean around for the same reason. (via Getty Images)

The Smoking Gun got ahold of Pharrell's concert rider. It has a lot of standard items you see on concert riders — Patron, raw almonds, Throat Coat tea, etc. But then, it lists "1 Framed Picture of Carl Sagan." In fact, it lists it twice:

So...that's a total of two framed pictures of Carl Sagan? (via The Smoking Gun)

This actually isn't totally new news. Pharrell himself told Today back in June that he requests the photo, and gave this explanation:

"I watched ‘Cosmos’ as a child and I was always blown away by (Sagan’s) mind and the way he thought,” the singer explained. “When I look at that picture I realize how lucky we all are ... to be on this planet and be able to do what we love to do every day. Seeing Carl’s face reminds me of it.”

Well, that's sincere and sweet. But if it's that important, why doesn't he carry his own portrait of Carl Sagan around? Does he enjoy seeing what frame and picture each venue chooses? Does he have a phobia of carrying photographs? Tell us, Pharrell!

"Frozen" director reveals Elsa and Anna have a little brother, and you'll never guess who it is.

0
0

The Disney universe is one step closer to becoming Tarantino universe. 

Now where does Tron fit into all of this? (via Disney Animation Studios/YouTube)

In a Reddit AMA last year, the creators of Frozen gave this answer to a question concerning Anna and Elsa's parents:

Where were the King and Queen planning to go when they lost their lives out at sea?

Jennifer: A wedding.

According to Chris, they didn't die on the boat. They got washed up on a shore in a jungle island. The queen gave birth to a baby boy. They build a treehouse. They get eaten by a leopard...

Kristen: They were going to Fantasy Island!! To fix the tensions in their marriage in a way only Ricardo Montalban.

This exploded the heads of many Disney fans, since that just happens to also be the backstory to Tarzan. Unfortunately, the creators never spoke on the matter again — that is, until Wednesday, when Chris Buck, one of the film's directors, clarified this backstory to MTV:

Explaining his theory, he also revealed a major detail that makes the whole theory come together. "I said, 'Of course Anna and Elsa's parents didn't die,'" he continued. "Yes, there was a shipwreck, but they were at sea a little bit longer than we think they were because the mother was pregnant, and she gave birth on the boat, to a little boy. They get shipwrecked, and somehow they really washed way far away from the Scandinavian waters, and they end up in the jungle. They end up building a tree house and a leopard kills them, so their baby boy is raised by gorillas." 

 So it's true then, right? Well, yes and no. According to the interview:

Chris was quick to insist that these are just his theories and nothing is official, and everyone should continue coming up with their own.

So it's true if you want it to be. Hooray for self-deception!

Amy Schumer, Judd Apatow, and Glen Hansard walk into a bar, and of course it goes viral.

0
0

Your friendly neighborhood celebrity prankster is at it again.

https://twitter.com/Steve_Cummins/status/632188549220179968

Sure, we all know that Amy Schumer delightfully crashes engagement photo shoots. Old news. But now she's upped her game and delightfully crashed a wedding party. 

Schumer is in Europe for the Trainwreck international press tour, and while in Dublin, she accidentally stumbled upon some cute newlyweds at a pub. She was with Trainwreck director Judd Apataow and guy-from-Once Glen Hansard, so now we're all shipping Amy Schumer and Glen Hansard, right? Just checking. The celebrities mingled with the normies, and they all sang songs while Hansard played guitar. There's even video of it, but you have to turn your head sideways to watch it. Price of viewing fame.

Sing along with celeb friends

Posted by Pamela Kavanagh on Friday, August 14, 2015

Congratulations to the happy couple on your viral wedding video! And your marriage.

The tide of the Internet has turned against YouTube vloggers Sam and Nia.

0
0

Oh Internet, you fickle mistress.

You guys make me feel weird. (via YouTube/Sam and Nia)

Sam and Nia are two family-oriented Christian video bloggers (yes, that's a real thing) who were recently in the limelight for their video in which Sam surprises Nia with a positive pregnancy test by stealing her pee. Three days later, they announced in another video that, sadly, Nia had a miscarriage. A lot of people on the Internet felt bad for them; however, a large contingent of commenters have started to call the authenticity of their videos into question:

Are you fucking seriously faking a miscarriage for viewers?

Beyond fake!!! And if I am wrong I am sorry but I really dont think I am, enjoy the viral video and if you are just using this to gain views think about the couples that went through something like this as I know first hand its awful and I can tell you I would not be happy the day after like in your videos after this... Woww dont even know what else to say... If I am wrong sorry and sooo know how it feels, if I am right then yea you both are just total (fill in the blank here) people. :-(

Oh my God, I have never seen such crap in all my life! They posted a video 2 days before this where he says she is 2 weeks late and then he produces a positive pregnancy result from stale pee lying in a toilet bowl. WTF! 2 days later she feels 'her womb empty out' and the baby was a girl and had a heartbeat!?!?! Oh please!! Lady, you got your fucking period, you crazy, over dramatic, fake, vomit inducing, idiots!

BuzzFeed did some detective work and got a doctor to comment on the potential accuracy of a pregnancy test taken from urine that wasn't directly applied to the test (Sam got Nia's pee from toilet; she didn't flush because she claims to not have wanted to wake the kids):

“I would not recommend this method,” Wendy White, M.D., a perinatologist at Mayo Clinic, told BuzzFeed News. “It would lead to false negatives, and theoretically could lead to false positives as well.”

[...]

According to Dr. White, from the Mayo Clinic, this testing method isn’t very reliable. “If there is a chemical in the toilet, like a cleaner or bleach, the results would be affected,” she said.

This whole situation makes me feel weird. On the one hand, I think there's something pretty gross about broadcasting your family's life on the Internet as your main source of income (Sam recently quit his job as nurse to start vlogging full-time, which apparently can garner a six-figure salary). They seem like they're constantly performing, and the kids don't really seem to have a choice in going along with it. They also have another video in which they tried to get their kids to be anti-gay marriage, which is pretty awful. On the other hand, if she had a miscarriage, that's also awful, so we should probably reserve our criticism since they're coping with it in their own strange, Christian vlogger way. I don't know, man. It's Friday. 


Can you find the rude word hidden in this 'Hunger Games' poster? Hint: It rhymes with 'bundt.'

0
0

"'Mockingjay Part 2'? I've never heard of it. Oh wait, is that the movie that had the word 'cunt' hidden in its advertisement?"

Yup. (via Lionsgate)

Some graphic designer probably had a very bad today, because Lionsgate released this new Mockingjay Part 2 poster, and it totally looks like it says "cunt" over Jennifer Lawrence's nose. Well, either that, or some graphic designer had a great day because they purposefully hid the word "cunt" in a major motion picture advertisement, and nobody noticed it before it went out into the world. I'm an optimist, mystery graphic designer, so I'm hoping it was the second option. If so, good work! When Lionsgate comes out with the Power Rangers film in 2017, can you hide the words "vaginal cavity" in the poster? Thanks!

Let this awkward video serve as an example of why newscasters shouldn't make jokes.

0
0

Oh, local news reporter. I'm so sorry to single you out. But we need to talk about this joke.

https://youtu.be/Nrw51Cn0L40  

A few things here, reporter guy:

1. Soooooo, this was awkward. I feel for you, man. 

2. You probably shouldn't use jokes on air that you got from your six-year-old nephew.

3. You don't have to be funny. I get it: being funny is fun! But you also have a job that actually is just about reporting facts, even if those facts are about a local sports team called the "Mothus Dawes Hotties."

4. Perhaps most importantly, if you are going to make a joke on the news, it shouldn't be about eating off of a butthole.

5. See point 4 above.

=https:>

Bad news for the weekend, guys: This angry baby's probably gonna end us all.

0
0

I have never seen a living creature, real or fictional, more ready to exact revenge on all of mankind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27AdWOcbmZc

 Sorry if you had plans for the weekend, everyone. Instead, you're probably going to have to spend your time fending off attacks from this angry baby, which obviously has a terrible demise planned for us all. Who could have wronged him so much, hurt him so bad, that he feels the need to turn to a life of pure evil? Or could he just be angry because he has a dirty diaper and instead of changing it, adults are mushing his face around and trying to get him to smile?

Nah, it's probably the evil revenge thing. Watch your backs!

Weekend

Toy Story 4 will be a love story between Woody and a woman that's not Ms. Davis.

0
0

It's also not Mrs. Potato Head, it's Bo Peep.

Woody with none of his lovers.
(via Getty)

The Toy Story franchise will carry on in the name of love, diving into the love story between Woody and Bo Peep. Never stop at a neatly resolved trilogy when you can churn out another movie and make zillions at the box office. Pixar has this down to a science, and good for them. Release an animated movie that kids love, throw in a few discrete dirty jokes that only adults will understand, and watch the cash roll in.

Interestingly, Bo Peep did not appear in Toy Story 3, and has a minimal role in the other two films. Pixar has said this will not be a prequel or a direct sequel, so they'll be crafting this romantic tale from scratch. Basically they'll be figuring out how to explain why Woody's girlfriend was absent for the last movie. Grad school? Peace Corps? It'll have to be a more wholesome option than when the rest of us explain why our significant others weren't around for a large chunk of time.

We look forward to the love story of Woody and Bo Peep, and those discrete dirty jokes that only adults understand in Pixar movies.

Viewing all 38991 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images