2.27.2004

Happy Birthday, Mommy!



Return of the One Party | Golden Gandalf Awards: "Winners will be announced at TheOneRing.net sometime following the big party, after the staff recovers and can get them posted. Voters who submit more than one ballot will have all votes thrown out. Open to legal residents of the world with a sense of humor or at least fun. Anybody taking the awards too seriously will be reported to the fun police."

Word is that Ian McKellen will definitely be at theonering.net's after-Oscar party (and if it's anything like past years, there will be other luminaries arriving). I would love to geek out and go to that.

Keith Richards 'should have died in 1996'.

I'm not so sure he didn't.

Clooney offers to wash cars in a toga for cash: "and I'll wash your car every week til it's paid off and Armor-all the tires in a toga. Hope to see you there, George."

Woohoo! My truck is filthy, George!!

2.26.2004

Eagle Scout accused of "arrogance" murder: "Mayou said Hirte was polite and quiet, got along with everyone, and despite being one of the football team's best players, never bragged. ``He had a level head and didn't think too much of himself,'' Mayou said. "

More damning words were never spoken.

2.24.2004

Extra kidneys give hard-drinking brothers the edge: "Two Bosnian brothers who say they can drink as much as they want without feeling drunk have been told they each have a spare set of fully functioning kidneys."

Awesome! They probably never even have to go to the bathroom when they're out at a bar.

Have you seen the new Quizno's ad, the one with the freaky Picasso-ized gerbil things, singing some weird song? I've seen it twice. Don't ask me what the song is, or what sort of little animals they are supposed to be, or what connection they could possibly have with Quizno's. I just know it cracks me up, when, really, it should be scaring the shit out of me.

2.23.2004

I got tickets!! I am so excited. He's coming to the Mohegan Sun casino here in CT, on June 2. While the seats aren't as great as I would like them to be, I'm just happy to have gotten tickets at all. They went on sale on Saturday morning at 10, when Sheila and I were in a meeting that lasted an hour or so. My plan was to go online and buy them when I got home that afternoon. Forgot. Remembered at about midnight at a friend's party. So there I was, a couple of martinis and a lot of wine later, at 3:30 in the morning, sitting at my computer, buying the tickets.

I'd love to take the next day off of work and stay at the casino overnight, but I checked the room rates and it's $225 a night. Yikes!

Schwarzenegger: Let foreign-born seek White House: "Arnold Schwarzenegger, making his Sunday talk show debut as governor, said that he and other foreign-born citizens should be eligible to run for the White House and that President Bush can carry California in November if he does more to help the state. "

What a shocker.

2.18.2004

Score!! Score!! Score!! Score!! Score!! Score!! Score!! Score!! Score!! Score!! Score!! Score!! Score!! Score!! Score!!

TeeVee Archive - CBS: The Sorry Network: "Moonves then read from a prepared text, apologizing to anyone offended by the following: having Jon Cryer host The People's Choice Awards; wasting the talents of Andre Braugher on Hack; reviving Aresenio Hall's career; the hairdo of 'that chick on Cold Case;' most of the network's sitcoms, Judging Amy; and 'whenever Dan Rather says something creepy and unsettling.'"

Teen finds his picture on missing children's Web site: "Authorities arrested the mother of a 17-year-old boy who saw his picture on a missing children's Web site and discovered that he was allegedly abducted from Canada 14 years ago. "

2.15.2004

Movie karaoke! I would totally be able to do it, if I could get past the embarrassment.

Larry David feels an unlikely kinship with President Bush:

"Still, after all this time, whenever I've mentioned my service in the Reserve during Vietnam, it's been met with sneers and derision. But now, thanks to President Bush, I can stand up proudly alongside him and all the other guys who guarded the home front. Finally, we no longer have to be embarrassed about our contribution during those very trying years."

2.14.2004

I love this photo. Check out his little legs under the table.

2.13.2004

"World Press Photo of the year 2003 by French photographer Jean-Marc Bouju".

Husband calls foul after seeing wife on porn site: "An angry husband who came across a video of his wife having sex with her lover on the Internet called the police who arrested a man suspected of filming a string of people without their consent, police say. "

Oops.

Is it any wonder that ABC is in dead last place when they make such astute programming choices: comedies starring Jessica Simpson and John Stamos. Way to keep it on the edge, ABC.

'Friends': The most overrated comedy ever - Feb. 12, 2004: "Even so, I have a modest proposal. I'd like to suggest that not only isn't 'Friends' the 'best comedy ever' (as NBC claimed before wisely recanting) ... it isn't even close. "

As harsh as this quote may sound, the article on the whole isn't; I completely agree with is assessment of the show. I stopped watching a few years ago because 1) it stopped being funny (although I heard they made a bit of a comeback in that area since) and 2) I felt the entire scenario and the characters had been played out. It is a sweet, funny show that has made practical icons out of its stars, but it doesn't come close to the all-time greats like Lucy, All in the Family, Cheers, Seinfeld and Frasier (some of my favorites). I'm sad to say I most probably will not watch the finale or that "reunion" thing they have coming up. I just don't care about that show anymore, and haven't for a very long time. I say stop paying so much attention to them and start giving the Frasier folks the send-off they deserve! (How sad is it that you can watch a retrospective of Frasier on VH-1 , of all places, but can't even find the show itself on its own network??

2.11.2004

Texas mom faces trial for selling sex toys: "Texas law allows for the sale of sexual toys as long as they are billed as novelties, BeAnn Sisemore, a Fort Worth attorney representing Webb, told the Houston Chronicle before a gag order was issued by the judge presiding over the case. But when a person markets sex toys in a direct manner that shows their actual role in sex, then that person is subject to obscenity charges, she told the newspaper. "

Unbelievable. I think we need a TV movie, a la "Harper Valley P.T.A."

In the "you learn something new every day category": Samantha Morton is British.

Huh.

Screaming teenagers hail Duran Duran: "Looking utterly bemused - as the scenes were reminscent of the band's early days - the three were enveloped by the jubilant crowd as they posed for photographers."

And I would have been screaming right along with them if I was there.

Stranded sea lion has bullet in head: "Animal rescue personnel now believe the sea lion may have been disoriented because of the bullet in the back of its skull."

I'd say that would be a good guess. Poor guy.

2.09.2004

MTV Holds Raciest Videos for Last: "Under intense scrutiny following Janet Jackson's breast-baring performance during last week's Super Bowl, MTV has quietly plucked a number of its edgiest music videos out of its daytime rotation."

I don't think that airing videos with adult content in the late hours of the day can be considered "engaging in self-censorship" - refusing to air videos with certain content or dictating the content itself, that is censorship. This is just acting responsibly, especially since they actively court a demographic that grows younger with every passing year.

I'm not sure which is funnier, the sight of this cow wandering through a bank, or the fact that it was a guest of honor at a wedding.

Click at your own risk.

Mommy, make the scary ladiesgo away!

Woman alive in Turkey rubble: "Saribabicci said the woman was suffering from gangrene and broken ribs. It took rescuers hours to free her from the rubble, where her feet were trapped under bodies. "

Amazing story, but where have I been? I hadn't even heard about the building collapse.

Hello!

I'm back, finally. The weekend was a bit hectic, and finding time to post (or even the interest to do so) was difficult. My mother wrenched her knee when she slipped on some ice in our driveway, so I spent pretty much the entire weekend caring for her. I'd also brought some work home, so in my downtime I was doing that, or at least making my best effort to look like I was working.

I did manage to go out drinking on Saturday night, with Sheila. We ended up having a really good time, saw a lot of folks we knew and I drank too much. Didn't feel so good for most of yesterday. One of our Anna Liffey friends, Dan, told us that he was having some of his poetry published and pointed us to his website. Poetry?! I had no idea. I was honored that he felt comfortable enough to share his work with us. If you'd like to read some of his work, he's at galwaypoet.com. Nice job, Dan.



2.04.2004

Goldfish survives motorway crash: "Police who arrived at the scene found the car sodden with water and littered in coloured gravel - prompting a hunt for the missing pet."

2.03.2004

Yeah, Baby, YEAH!

To boldy go absolutely nowhere. He makes a good point.

Suspicious Powder Found in Connecticut Mail Center: "A mail clerk discovered sandy granules in an envelope about midnight Monday at Wallingford, Connecticut, in one of the same facilities in which anthrax spores were found in 2001, a U.S. postal official said. The 2001 find came during a major anthrax scare that also involved Senate offices in the U.S. Capitol. "

Jesus. I really don't want to have to start wearing rubber gloves and using zip loc baggies when going through my mail again.

UPDATE:: Whew.

Oh, will someone please put this guy away for good?? How many lives does he have to destroy before the judicial system finally gets it?

As an aside, if they ever made a movie about him, the choice of actor to portray him would be a no-brainer: Tom Noonan. You know the dude - John Lee Roche from "Paper Hearts" (X-Files), Francis Dollarhyde in the original (and superior) Manhunter - He would be perfect.

Mars mission enters full swing: "'We have two operational rovers on Mars,' Trosper said at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "

Yay!! The high res photos being sent back still fascinate me.

2.02.2004

"Shame on you, CBS for allowing the brats at MTV hijack your Super Bowl telecast. As for you, MTV: You have every morning, afternoon and evening throughout the year to indoctrinate America's youth with your dubious values. Would it have killed you to give it a rest for one day? "

Amen to that.

New England claims second title in three years: "What was supposed to be a colossal bore turned into one of the most exciting Super Bowls ever with a thrilling back-and-forth final quarter that Adam Vinatieri finished off with his foot. "

Yay, Pats!! That last quarter was nerve-wracking. I had to look away for almost the entire final minute. Great game. Except for the dreadful halftime show and this stupidity.

Bush to pick panel for WMD inquiry: "'We also want to look at our war against proliferation and and weapons of mass destruction in a broader context,' Bush said. 'So I'm putting together a independent bipartisan commission to analyze where we stand, what we can do better as we fight this war against terror.' "

My brain is crowded with farm-y sayings, like "closing the barn door after the horses are out" or putting the "fox in charge of the henhouse". While neither of them is really appropriate, my gut feeling is also farm-related: It stinks.