wilson g. tang

Asian pears are delicious, which is why Jill Schlesinger--The 404's very own financial expert from CBS MoneyWatch--likes them so much! After getting through some munching and slurping noises in the first minute by Wilson, Jill explains to us what is going on with the economy and why we need to fear the End of Days. Just kidding...mostly.

Not being financial experts by any means, Jill explains some basic terms to us so we know what the heck is going on. Like what is the difference between the unemployment rate and weekly jobless claims? Plus, she goes on to say that she thinks that everybody should have at least six months of living expenses saved up, given that the average person is jobless for 22 weeks now. And maybe we should start spending money again if we know that we're not about to lose our job. It would help the economy out. We know it sounds very different than most of our inane topics to most of our audience, but money is something we all need to know and understand. Plus, we love how Jill lays it on us with financial straight talk.

On the second half of the show, Jill tells us about her CBS Evening News appearance and her lady crush on our very own Katie Couric. Jill comments about the growing political discourse about a possible second stimulus package. Check out the segment. We've embedded it into this blog post.

Come back tomorrow, where we've got Steve Guttenberg. Of course, we're got the doors barricaded, just in case HR comes running in. And! We've got Wilson's Audio Draft. (Editor's note: I promise I listen to music. Whale sounds anybody?)

UPDATED: Before we forget, download the new 404 artwork for your desktop background.Desktop Backgrounds: 4 x 3, 16 x 9 and 16 x10, iPhone.

Full Disclosure: CNET, The 404, MoneyWatch and the CBS Evening News all are properties of CBS.

Today's show covers Wilson's ever-growing locks of hair and Google ads catering to stupid people. We also take a look back at the original Sony Walkman and examine the best-selling video games of the '90s. Finally, stick around for our weekly Audio Draft Pick sponsored by Beck's Beer in conjunction with Last.fm!

The first segment of the show is dedicated to Wilson's beautiful head of hair. I think I met Wilson's hair long before I ever met the man, and while I've always loved its golden highlights and butter-soft touch, I can't help but think of the Herculean Kevin Sorbo every time I glance in its general direction. Maybe it should start introducing itself with us at the beginning of the show.

Lots of nostalgia on today's show! After a long examination of the way Google is marketing ads to stupid people, we run down the top 50 best-selling video games of the '90s. Most of the picks are no-brainers, but there are a few surprises in there, including Frogger for PS1 coming in at No. 46. Did people really pay money to buy FROGGER on a DISC?! Scary to think about now.

Next, we launch into a story about 13-year old Scott Campbell swapping his Apple iPod for the original Sony Walkman. Fresh on the heels of the gadget's 30-year anniversary, this leads us to reminisce about the influence of the Walkman on all subsequent mobile audio products. We all had them (at least those of us born prior to 1990) and absolutely loved making mixtapes and mixtape art for our friends and significant loved ones. Unfortunately, we get so nostalgic that both Jeff and I reveal humiliating stories that you won't want to miss.

Long live the Sony Walkman! You were there with us through good and bad times, my friend--we'll never forget you.

We're also very psyched today, not only because the date is 7/8/9, but also for the Weekly Audio Draft, brought to you by Beck's Beer and Last.fm! Also, big thanks to Dylan Swart for sending in a poster for the segment. It's my pleasure to introduce today's band, Matt Pond PA.

Like everyone, the transition from middle school to high school wasn't easy for me, but music like this, among others, helped me push through it and I'm proud of these guys for continuing to put out such heartfelt records after 12 years of lineup changes, relocation, and subtle changes to their sound.

The sample song on today's show is called Several Arrows Later from the album "Several Arrows Later." The music combines smooth, gentle vocals with beautiful instrumentation for a unique sound that refuses to be pigeonholed into today's genres. The word "emo," although thrown around a lot in describing Matt Pond PA, is a cringing understatement for this band. Granted, all of the band's music is emotional by nature, but what I like the best about Matt Pond PA is that each of its songs strikes a different chord--each one means something different to the listener. Check out Matt Pond PA and get hooked!

(Last.fm is a part of CBS Interactive, which also publishes CNET News and Reviews.)

We invite Natali Del Conte onto today's show to have some fun with us, but you should've been there in the preshow--she went berzerko! We calm her down a little bit and she talks to us about her Palin/Twitter fallout and her upcoming appearance at Comic-Con 2009. She also dispels rumors about drugs in her undergarments, and we get to a few more exciting stories on the show!

If you're wondering why there's a photo of Lara Croft to the left of this paragraph, look again: it's actually Natali Del Conte, host of Loaded on CNETTV. She'll be at this year's Comic-Con 2009 in San Diego, so be sure to look for that soon! We love it when Natali comes on because we always seem to bring out the dirty side of her, or so we think.

Today's show starts off a little rough because Natali just can't seem to get the Wi-Fi in the studio to connect to her computer, so we're warning you to brace yourselves for a classic NDC scream in the beginning of today's show. After that, everything runs smoothly (as smooth as it can get on The 404).

We get to talking about Sarah Palin resigning and the ridiculous speech that sort of made sense, but didn't say anything. I think NDC put it best when she said that the former Governor of Alaska is very good at the art of "saying without saying." We all watched the speech, too, and after several 17-minute viewings, I still have no idea what the heckbeans is going on. I guess she's not so much of a Maverick after all.

The next story in today's show rundown is about the city of Boston launching a complaint-filing iPhone application. Sounds like a disaster waiting to strike, right? I'd have to agree with you. Now that all citizens of Boston have an open forum to complain, I imagine a flood of the most mundane little squawks about graffiti, potholes, smells, street lights, etc...stuff that you normally wouldn't give a **** about.

After we report on the story, we go around the table and list off a few complaints that we have with the city of New York, and if you think Boston is bad, just wait, there are a few good ones in there. Are you listening, New York?

Finally, we want to send our thanks to our pal Daniel for sending us a very kind e-mail with a picture of what he did this weekend. He writes, "Hey Guys, Wanted to let you know that I spent sometime with the 404 and a Becks this weekend. Feel free to post this to the blog or whatever. Really love your show, keep up the work and congrats on the sponsor." Now if that isn't the most ideal way to sponsor a show, I don't know WHAT is! We jest, but we seriously appreciate pictures like these, they make our day. By the way, our new iTunes album art looks GREAT in Cover Flow!

Since we're not having a show tomorrow for Independence Day, there's a lot to cover today, including a new segment with Beck's Beer and Last.fm, a chat with the winner of our logo design contest, and a hilarious voicemail from everyone's favorite Tina Schwartz.

Our annual GetMcDonaldsBreakfastOnJulyThird Day leaves us with upset stomachs and wandering minds, so it's a good thing we have Blake Stevenson on for a quick segment in the beginning of today's show to talk about his winning submission for our logo contest.

We get to pick his brain a bit about how he came up with the design, and we're also curious about his work history and how he got so good! In turn, Blake also surprises us with the amazing poster illustration you see to the left. Click on it to see the larger version, and check out the impressively accurate caricatures of Wilson, Jeff, and me! From Wilson's highlights to Jeff's pursed lips and my ridiculous everything, Blake really did an excellent job of capturing the feel of the show, both with the poster and the logo itself. Attention Tom Green: critics agree, your logo sucks.

The good news is that Blake Stevenson is more than willing to redo it, so head over to JetPacksandRollerSkates.com and put him to work!

We're also very excited to debut the very first of our bi-weekly (that's twice a week) segment called The Weekly Audio Draft, sponsored by Beck's Beer in conjunction with Last.fm. Every Monday and Friday we'll introduce you guys to some fresh bands with varying genres that we hope will be music to your ears.

Jeff is first up with a band called The Twilight and the Sound, which features Jeremiah Rangel and Matt Lovato, former members of pop-punk band Mest. Their new band draws influences from The Cure, Deftones, Weezer, and Interpol, and you can buy their new album "100 Sundays..." on their profile page on Last.fm. On today's edition of the Weekly Audio Draft, we rock out to their new song "There's No Basement at the Alamo," a driving, upbeat track that combines male and female vocals in a call-and-response format that makes the perfect accompaniment to a weekend BBQ or road trip. Leave a comment on this post and let us know what you think! Check out more info for the band at their MySpace page as well.

The second half of the show is filled with hilarious voice mails including some bike shopping advice as well as a really funny voice mail from our favorite listener, Tina Schwartz. We have to reiterate that her views and opinions DO NOT reflect those of The 404 or our parent company, CBS Interactive. We even get into a few stories at the end of the show, including some back and forth about the Microsoft and Nickelback collabo, Facebook flirting and Universal grabbing the rights to the Asteroids full-length movie.

Have a great Independence Day weekend everybody, stay safe, and don't forget to check back tomorrow for our weekend throwback episode!

Last.fm is a part of CBS Interactive, which also publishes CNET.

As a longtime fan and patron of the Bicycle Film Festival, we're proud to welcome its founder and director, Brendt Barbur, into the studio for a sit-down interview about the international filmfest. The BFF is a celebration of everything that encompasses cycling: joyrides, casual trips, long-distance journeys, trick sessions, racing, and so much more is captured by the unique program offered.

Brendt tells us about the bike accident that motivated him to immerse himself in bicycle advocacy and the production of bikecentric movies. Eventually, the wheels started turning, more people submitted videos, and nine years later, the festival reaches tons of people across the world in dozens of cities including Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Sydney, Tokyo, Paris, and Melbourne, to name a few.

Most of the movies are independently shot and produced with innovations in helmet-cam technology and mixed-media design. To further promote cycling, Brendt and the BFF team also host an annual art show that features both established and independent artists who use bikes as inspiration. If you have a chance, we highly recommend checking out at least one of the programs as the festival comes around to your city. By the end of the show, I think I might have convinced Wilson to actually buy a bike! Much thanks to Brendt and the Bicycle Film Festival for all that they do for the cycling community.

If you watch today's video (coming soon, check later today), you'll notice some serious changes to the introduction. We're very proud to announce that The 404 is now sponsored by Beck's Beer, so a big thanks to them for supporting the show. We're also going to be debuting several new weekly segments over the course of the next few months, so be sure to listen to tomorrow's episode for the first of many new changes coming to The 404 Web show. And don't forget that we'll have Blake Stevenson, the winner of our logo competition, on the show tomorrow to talk about his design. See you then!

I'll ruin the surprise for you right now: the worst movie of the summer (only four days in so far) is "Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen." On today's show, we rip apart this atrocity even more, spoiler-free! Wilson also gives us his first impressions of his brand new Apple iPhone 3GS and discovers the weirdest camera issue ever. I love you, Wilson, but that came out of NOWHERE!

So I finally broke down and saw "Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen" last night, and although I can't give away too many plot details, suffice it to say that I'm throwing in my vote for it being the WORST movie of the summer. Sure, summer blockbusters are supposed to be silly and entertaining, but a truckload of physical humor and irritating little side-stories ruined what could have been an awesome action movie. Where are the Transformers fanboys on this one? This betrayal feels like that "Spiderman 3" abomination all over again! Apart from the movie being about an hour too long (2.5 hours total, say whaaatt?), the only parts worth watching are the epic fight scenes and Megan Fox jumping/running/screaming/rolling through explosions. We also address that whole racist robot plot point yet again--now that I've actually seen the movie, I wouldn't say that characters are straight-up racist, but the gold tooth and excessive slang are definitely in poor taste and an unnecessarily stereotypical slight at hip-hop. Listen in for more details.

The next story is about gaming company Global Gaming Factory X resurrecting The Pirate Bay as a legal file-distro site. After a bit of confusion about how exactly that whole case ended, we're still left wondering why companies keep trying to cannibalize on the success of dead P2P sites, relying on the name alone to tread water and maybe even gain a few new subscribers. The problem is that it never works! Napster, anyone? Who's idea was that, anyway? "Hey guys, let's buy this dead service that still exists only to bait people into RIAA lawsuits and relaunch the site with legit, paid content. It's all about brand confidence, right?" Good luck with that, doods.

Finally, we're announcing BIG changes on the show tomorrow including the triumphant debut of our new logo (based on Blake Stevenson's winning design) and a few surprises to go along with it! We're also excited to have Brendt Barbur of the Bicycle Film Festival as our guest on tomorrow's show. Check it out LIVE tomorrow @ 11AM ET at CNET Live.

After a beautiful New York summer weekend, The 404 is back with plenty of stories to talk about. First off, we recap our appearance at The Digital Youth Media & Technology Festival, then Wilson surprises us with news about his phone and proves that he is truly the worst kind of Apple Fanboy. Finally, we settle the age-old argument: Batman vs. Transformers?!

We all had busy weekends, especially since it was so sunny in New York, but we wanted to thank our buddy Juan Garzon of MOUSE Squad for inviting us to speak at the first annual Digital Youth Media and Technology Festival on Saturday. We definitely do a lot of damage on The 404, so we felt the need to give something back to some of our younger listeners. Kids can't live on toilet jokes alone, after all. We each had the chance to speak to several groups of young people interested in pursuing a career in technology. Listen in to the first half of the show to hear how we all managed to sneak our way into CNET. Somehow, two years later, we're still here!

In usual fashion, Wilson blindsides us with the news that his weekend was spent desperately trying to track down an iPhone 3GS to replace his broken Nokia. You really need to listen to Wilson justify spending money on an iPhone after holding out for two years. Anyway, for some reason, AT&T refuses to do business after 6 p.m. and shuts down all its servers, so two separate Apple stores told him to head over to the 24-hour Apple cube store on Fifth Ave., but the lines ended up being 3 HOURS long! I won't give away what happened, but based on Wilson's prior Apple fandom, I think you guys can predict what he did.

All this plus a bunch of awesome Calls From the Public, including several Michael Jackson tributes and a touching story from Jeff about a spinal implant that'll give you a very surprising, very delightful surprise. If you want to hear YOUR voice on The 404, give us a call at 1866-404-CNET!

From the creators of "Drawn Together" comes "DJ & The Fro," a new daily, animated show on MTV. The 404 speaks to the creators, Matt Silverstein and Dave Jeser, about the show and talk about how Michael Jackson's death almost ruined the shows' first few episodes.

The show creators call it a rip-off of "Beavis and Butthead" for the viral video generation. DJ and the Fro are two twenty-somethings, who spend most of their day watching viral videos and commenting on them. Sounds eerily similar to what The 404 guys do all day long. Anyway, the guys tell us about how the show came into being and let us know that a "Drawn Together" straight-to-DVD movie is coming out as well!

"DJ & The Fro" reminds us a bit of "Tosh.0" on Comedy Central, which premiered just a few weeks ago. The 404 guys think we should have jumped on to this bandwagon a long time. This is what we do already for the show every day!

Anyway, hope you all enjoy the abbreviated show along with our Michael Jackson commentary. He will be missed. Spend your weekend listening to your favorite MJ jam and reminisce about the fond memories you had while karaoking to "Billie Jean."

In a very special, and very serious, episode of The 404, we sit down to reflect on the many ways Michael Jackson changed the world. From his music to his dance and music videos, MJ's ubiquity is undeniable. Heroes come and go, but legends never die! Rest in peace, Mike!

We've never done this before, but Michael Jackson had such a positive effect on all of our lives that we felt the need to take a moment and show him our appreciation. Obviously, we're not the only ones numbed by his passing--news sites across the Internet couldn't keep up with the hordes of people desperately trying to hear the news. Like so many people, Wilson and I spent hours poring over Michael's fantastic career, but there's something so edifying in knowing that the entire world shares this loss.

The real testament to MJ's success is the love from his fans--his live shows drew tons of people, many of whom often fainted at the sight of their favorite musician onstage.

Michael was also famous for bringing his most adoring fans up onstage for a quick hug before getting aggressively taken off the stage kicking and screaming for another chance to hug their hero. Isn't it weird to think about how many people have enjoyed his music? We all have our stories, whether it's dancing to "Thriller" at a prom, or singing karaoke to "Never Can Say Goodbye." Check out this episode and help us pay tribute to the King of Pop.