Check's In the Mail

From Thinkgeek.com: (link)

Excuse Box

Hey, I gotta call you back later...

Everybody gets those annoying phone calls. The kind where you sigh heavily, roll your eyes, and make those annoying "blah-dee-blah" hand gestures like some demented muppet that won't shut up... Believe me, we get those calls, too. We feel your pain. Luckily, we have an awesome solution.

The Excuse Box is no ordinary key tag. Its onboard memory holds 10 full minutes of environmental effects designed specifically to befuddle your annoying caller. Click on the links below, and imagine yourself gleefully escaping from an otherwise awkward and potentially trouble-filled phone call.

• Um, sorry, I really gotta hang up - there's a thunderstorm coming! Hey, can I let you go?


• I'm here at the auto-shop, and the mechanic wants to talk. Oh, jeez! There's all kinds of flashing lights ahead. I'd better hang up...


• I'm sorry, the baby's crying. Can I talk to you later?


• I'm... jeez, I can't hear a thing - they've got this crew putting up dry-wall over here. Can I call you back?


• Okay...hey, that was the final boarding call, I have to get on the plane!


• ...hello?... can you... can you hear me?... you're breaking up...!


• I'm sorry, that was my secretary - I have another call...


• Wow, did you hear that? The operator is breaking in - I gotta take this, it must be important!

These are high-quality sound effects, not some cheap instantly recognizable crap. If you've ever wanted to hang up the phone, guilt free, this gadget is a must-have.

Hee hee
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No Willie Sutton

From Ananova.com:

Robbers snatch dog poo

A Chinese woman has told how robbers snatched a parcel of dog poo wrapped in newspaper out of her hand outside a bank.

Mrs Chen, of Laohekou city, was waiting in the bank to withdraw money when nature suddenly called for her dog.

"While I was waiting in the queue, my dog had to poo. So I asked for several pieces of newspaper to wrap the poo," she said.

After wrapping it, Chen left the bank, and was waiting to cross the street to throw the parcel into a rubbish bin when the robber struck.

"A motorcycle stopped swiftly before me, the man on the rear seat seized the package from me, and they sped away," she said.

Police are investigating the case while "laughing at the stupidity of the robbers", according to Chutian City Papers.

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Six Degrees of Merv

Proving that "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" works with ANYONE, here's how you could do it for Merv Griffin:

1. Merv Griffin - Karl Malden (PHANTOM OF THE RUE MORGUE)
   


2. Karl Malden - Dean Martin (MURDERS ROW)
   


3. Dean Martin - Robert Mitchum (FIVE CARD STUD)
   


4. Robert Mitchum - Robert DeNiro (THE LAST TYCOON)
   


5. Robert DeNiro - Kevin Bacon (SLEEPERS)

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The Company

TNT is running a mini-series called The Company that traces CIA activities over a 40-year period, from the beginning of the Cold War through the demise of the Soviet Union.

It sounds worth watching.

But, based on the previews run by TNT, it looks like the "company" referred to in the title is the Hair Club for Men.
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I Hate Gen-X

Geez...this guy needs to lighten up. Actually, his site is pretty funny.

I Hate Gen-X---[and Y]
Obvious and vulgar, living contrived lives (link)

..Gen-X lazily, carelessly celebrates all that is ugly. There is no intellectual curiosity nor motive behind their desire to tear down that which is beautiful or elegant, no "deconstructivist" artsy-fartsyisms at the root of their aesthetic terror campaign. Rather, they are truly slackers: intellectually atrophied, creatively empty, politically ignorant and inept, and...socially retarded..

• Jeanine Garofalo Calculated frump. Utterly unfunny. She was, however, unintentionally hilarious during her saturation talkshow and news program appearances protesting the Iraq war, doing her usual shtick ... admiring herself as she smugly sprays words while saying absolutely nothing.
  
  
• Ann Coulter A once minor functionary for Gingrich leftover Spencer Abraham (the toadlike former 1-term Senator) who proves that self-promotion can take you anywhere - including the halls of media power ... oh, and look for the irresponsible ranting cunt's new book (she praises Joe McCarthy!) which doesn't seem too concerned with things like historical fact
  
  
• Kevin Smith He proves the point that Gen-X has nothing to say for he stated that he may make only ten films [merciful gods!] because he may "run out of things to say." After his shit-monster in 'Dogma' I kinda think he said it all.
  
  
• Matt Drudge Rich and famous yellow "journalist." An early web entrepeneur, Drudge almost single-handedly started the wasteful debacle (money, time, reputations) of the Clinton impeachment over the Monica Lewinsky affair. Drudge has no formal journalism training, but now earns millions and is treated like a pundit on par with Washington pros who've worked the town for decades. New, lower standards indeed! He once admitted to homosexual "experimentation" and in the interest of equal [prurient] time, I think Clinton supporters would like to know, Matt, ... were you bottom?
  
  
• Jack Black Not since Boomer James Belushi has someone so singularly untalented come along to hog up so much media space. Black is not good-looking, has no discernible talents, and is not the least bit amusing - despite his manic energy putting forth his over-the-top children's level shtick. Oh, by the way, your band sucks too Jack.
  
  
• Monica Lewinsky Unlike Judith Exner, who knew to keep her mouth shut, this tubby cocksucker blabbed to 13 of her closest girlfriends that she was giving oral pleasure to our then president and thus gave the right-wing asshole Republicans all the ammo they needed to precipitate a constitutional crisis. Emblematic of the utter cluelessness about social responsibility and propriety Gen-X embodies.
  
  
• Alanis Morisette I happened to catch the premiere of her breaththrough video (you know, she's wearing white and the video has blurry orange filters muddying the images) ... which I really liked. But that was her one good song. Everything she's done since has been from the lamb-in-heat school of vocalizations Gen-Xers seem to just love. They mistake bad singing for plaintive wailing. It just sounds whiney and awful, but Xers gobble it up.

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Two Wrongs...

Gwyneth Paltrow's latest make-over is NOT an improvement: (link)

It looks like her and Jeanine Garofalo had their genes spliced together in the telepod from "The Fly".

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Tastes Like Chicken

This newly discovered lobster makes a sound like a cricket and has a soft shell that feels like felt: (link)

A bizarre crustacean, tagged the 'musical furry lobster', has been found in Australian waters for the first time.

It's so unusual, with a furry shell and the ability to chirp, that scientists have placed it in its own genus.

But the lobster was almost lost to science.

Rumour has it the French researchers who discovered the world's first specimen in the 1980s didn't realise its significance. So, they ate it for dinner.

Damn French (I wonder if they're good with "freedom fries").

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How Could They Tell?

For one day, Roseanne Barr's Myspace page contained a number of posts that read like drunken rants. For example: (link)

"I need to stop drinking, but I do not wish to...I am in Hawaii on the beach drunk and trying to hide out from people who want me to do a new sitcom which I probably will do cuz [sic] I miss working," went one message attributed to Barr. "I still f--king hate tom arnolds f--king guys and everyone in show biz is a c---sucker too. I should not drink so much, as my own grown children say, but what the hell...I LIKE RED WINE!!!!"

On her official website, she revealed that an ex-employee had hacked into her Myspace account:

"One of the interns who was administering my MySpace page...has been fired," the 54-year-old comic wrote late Monday. "I apologize for the offensive blogging that went on there last night. I write only at RoseanneWorld.com. I apologize to all on MySpace who received the offensive bulletins. The matter has been handled."

For laughs, I went to RoseanneWorld.com and here's one of her REAL posts:

Ronald Reagan: the man who destroyed America, single handedly.
Bush: the men who robbed the savings and loans, the public coffers, ran the CIA and sold our country to saudi arabia and china.
Gingrich: a southern racist and a fat closet case.
Obama: same shit different day
Oprah: loves the rich white hollywood establishment
Hilary: union buster
Bill Clinton: liar thief and friend of bush sr.
Pelosi: such a coward, she might as well have balls.
Romney: insurance whore
democracy: what the president vice president and congress and the senate fear more than anything else, including terrorism
religion: child molesting, woman hating closet cases, money grubbing insurance whores
democrats: sold out spineless bottom feeders
republicans: child molesters and pimps.

I think the hacker makes more sense.

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All the News That's Fit to Pri

From Editor and Publisher:

Honey, They Shrunk The ....Times? Smaller 'NYT' Coming on Monday (link)

...In a front page note to readers this morning, the paper stated that the print edition they will hold tomorrow will be decidedly more compact.

Beginning Monday, the Times "will reduce the width of its pages by an inch and a half," to a 12-inch standard, the paper declared.

"The move will cut newsprint expenses and, in some printing press locations, will make special configurations unnecessary. Slight modifications in design will preserve the look and texture of The Times, with all existing features and sections, and" -- it admitted at the end -- "somewhat fewer words per page."

But fear not -- I'm sure the NY Times editors will come up with a formula to keep the rate of Left-wing ass kissing per page unchanged (nyuk nyuk nyuk).

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Why We Fight

My first thought when seeing this movie was the irony of how President Eisenhower, who was viewed as an idiot by many on the Left (and some on the Right), is now being hailed as a prophet for his "military industrial complex" speech.

The initial two-thirds of Why We Fight IS very interesting. The scenes at the trade show for military hardware are hilarious and it's NOT an exercise in self-promotion like ANYTHING Michael Moore has done.

However, Why We Fight loses a lot of credibility when it tries to build the thesis that the Iraq war was waged mainly as excuse for our government to USE the tools of war. This is vocalized in the film by, among others, Karen Kwiatkowski (who formerly served in the Pentagon):

We have a congress that failed, in every way, to ask the right questions, to hold the president to account. Our congress failed us miserably, and that's because many in congress are beholden to the military industrial complex.

As developed in the film, this idea comes across like a "fluoridated water" conspiracy theory (especially when simple incompetence would be easier to prove).

Also, Gore Vidal, who for some reason appears in LOTS of documentaries, turns up to rant on about how our use of the A-bombs on Japan was a war crime.

That said, Why We Fight is worth renting if only to watch the first hour.
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Cleavage 101

A fashion choice by Sen. Hillary Clinton created a minor public debate last week:

Hillary Clinton's Tentative Dip Into New Neckline Territory (link)
...It was startling to see that small acknowledgment of sexuality and femininity peeking out of the conservative -- aesthetically speaking -- environment of Congress. After all, it wasn't until the early '90s that women were even allowed to wear pants on the Senate floor. It was even more surprising to note that it was coming from Clinton, someone who has been so publicly ambivalent about style, image and the burdens of both.

The US debates Hillary's cleavage (link)
...The story has even been taken up by the Clinton campaign itself, in a fundraising e-mail that went out to supporters saying, "Frankly, focusing on women's bodies instead of their ideas is insulting" and urging readers to "Take a stand against this kind of coarseness and pettiness in American culture. And take a stand for Hillary, the most experienced, most qualified candidate running for president.”

Because SOMEONE has to, I'll help sort things out.

In regard to women politicians and their public displays of cleavage, here's how the voting goes:

Sen. Hillary Clinton - NO


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi - NO


Argentine Sen. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner - YES!!!!


There endith the lesson.
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The 8th Wonder of the World

Ladies and Gentlemen...Michelle Pfeiffer! (link)



She's in three flicks this year and, at 49 (yes f-o-r-t-y n-i-n-e), is still quite hot!
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Nerd Humor

While I still don't understand the appeal of Harry Potter, here's what happens when two pillars of geekdom (computers and sci-fi/fantasy) collide:

The resignation of the IT director from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (link)

Headmaster:

I regret that I must resign my position, effective two weeks ago, at least.

It is simply impossible under these conditions to create a modern, integrated, flexible IT architecture aligned with the school’s educational mission and objectives.

Deployment of the OC-3 fiber backbone met insuperable difficulties, as you know, when the cabling crew was attacked repeatedly by Dementors. Cabling staff rarely are effervescent people in the best of times, and having their life force sucked through their faces by cloaked, shadowy horrors as they lay paralyzed in icy terror is a serious de-motivator...(more)

Oh, there's more. It goes on and on and on like that for about ten paragraphs. But I must stop now. I've been to two Star Trek conventions and that's stupidest thing I ever read in an email.

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The Simpsons Movie

It was hard to believe that it took 10 years (or more) for the Simpsons team to get this movie made. Maybe they should have pulled the trigger sooner as it appears to have ripened on the vine a bit. It's basically one LONG Simpsons episode that I had to pay for. In fact, there's a great gag about that right at the beginning (Homer looks straight at the audience, points and calls us "suckers").

On my "cartoon show rating continuum" -- with 10 being the very best (such as South Park "Episode 1008: Make Love not Warcraft") and 1 being crap (such as any, and I mean ANY, episode of Family Guy) -- I give it a 7. Not too shabby.

There are only 2 or 3 parts that couldn't have been done on TV (some crowd scenes, where the characters look like cardboard cutouts, and Bart's naked skateboarding exhibition). But still, it's mostly funny and worth the price of a ticket (for a matinee).

Suckers (DOH!).
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Ass, Jack...Ass

Matt Damon, of the lame Bourne spy series spouts off against James Bond. (link)

Bond is "an imperialist and he's a misogynist. He kills people and laughs and sips martinis and wisecracks about it," Damon, 36, told The Associated Press in an interview.

Take it easy there tiger.

Paul Greengrass, Damon's director on Universal's "Bourne Ultimatum" and its 2004 predecessor, "The Bourne Supremacy," agreed that Bond is a relic from a different era.

"He's an insider. He likes being a secret agent. He worships at the altar of technology. He loves his gadgets. And he embodies this whole set of misogynistic values," Greengrass said. "He likes violence. That's part of the appeal of the character. He has no guilt. He's essentially an imperial adventurer of a particularly English sort.

Meanwhile, every frickin' entry in the Bourne series goes like this...Bourne is suddenly and inexpictably attacked in public, he fights his way out using over rehearsed Hollywood karate tricks, he figures out that his old CIA bosses are after him, he calls them on the phone to threaten them, he crashes a car, explosions, the end.

zzzzzzzzz

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It's a Mad House

Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. (link)

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) - The producers of ABC's new "Cavemen" said Wednesday the comedy is much more than the insurance company commercials that inspired it, but isn't designed to be an ambitious allegory about race.

Geico's TV spots show highly evolved but shaggy-looking cavemen chafing at misconceptions about their sophistication and intelligence. The series, debuting Oct. 2, follows another trio of Cro-Magnons facing prejudice as they try to fit in contemporary society.

"If the show works, it will work because people care about these three guys under a lot of makeup and ... can relate to their problems and find them charming," producer Mike Schiff told the Television Critics Association's summer meeting.

It will be unwatchable and people won't care. I give it 8-10 episodes, tops!

The pilot is being re-shot, ABC said. The network and producers said they decided it jumped ahead too far in the characters' lives and failed to establish them properly.

Translation: test audiences said it sucked.

...One reporter asked why the cavemen don't ease their way by getting a shave and a haircut. "There's a name for those kind of people, and they're called 'shavers,' and the cavemen community looks down on them," Gordon said.

HA HA HEE HEE HARR HAR HAR....You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!
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Lighten Up Francis

For some reason reading this conjured up an image of Fredo Corleone in Godfather 2 ("I'm smart! Not like everybody says... like dumb... I'm smart and I want respect!").

From Examiner.com (link)

Newt Gingrich goes nuclear: May enter race to foil 'pygmies'

WASHINGTON - Dismissing the GOP presidential field as a "pathetic" bunch of "pygmies," Newt Gingrich hinted Monday he might step in to beat Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

"If, in mid-October, it's quite clear that one or more of the current candidates is strong enough to be a serious alternative to a Clinton-Obama ticket, you don't need me to run," the former House Speaker said at a breakfast sponsored by the American Spectator. "If it becomes patently obvious, as the morning paper points out, that the Democrats have raised a hundred million more than the Republicans, and at some point people decide we are going to get Hillary unless there's a radical change, then there's space for a candidate," he added. "So you'll know by mid-October one of those two futures is real."

You "don't NEED me to run?" If there's any doubt that he wouldn't "connect" with people, his final quote in the article is classic Gingrich:

Pressed by The Examiner about whether his political baggage renders him unelectable, Gingrich compared himself to a famous French statesman. "This is like going to De Gaulle when he was at Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises during the Fourth Republic and saying, 'Don't you want to rush in and join the pygmies?'" he said.

Oh yes, the "Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises during the Fourth Republic" reference is one we all can identify with.
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Daddy's Little Girl...

All grown up now...

Lindsay Lohan Mug Shot (link)
Actress, 21, nabbed in Santa Monica on drunk driving, cocaine charges JULY 24--Here's the mug shot Lindsay Lohan posed for this morning following her arrest in Santa Monica for drunk driving and cocaine possession. The actress, 21, was nabbed after cops spotted her SUV chasing another vehicle at high speed. After Lohan failed a field sobriety test, she was transported to the L.A. county lockup, where a pat down search turned up cocaine in her pants pocket.

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Talk About "Gassy" Food

From Science Daily:

Weight Gain Of U.S. Drivers Has Increased Nation's Fuel Consumption (link)

Science Daily — As American waistlines have expanded since 1960, so has their consumption of gasoline, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Virginia Commonwealth University say.

Americans are now pumping 938 million gallons of fuel more annually than they were in 1960 as a result of extra weight in vehicles. And when gas prices average $3 a gallon, the tab for overweight people in a vehicle amounts to $7.7 million a day, or $2.8 billion a year.

Hmmmm...maybe Michael Moore has been the one conspiring with big oil interests all along.
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Mad Men

I was mostly enthusiastic about the first episode. My first thought was that it was almost a cross between Crime Story and the agency scenes from Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House ("if you ain't eatin' Whamm, you aint eatin' ham").

I'm a sucker for all of the retro aspects of the show (production design, music, wardrobe, etc.). So, the look of Mad Men alone is worth at least on hour of anyone's time.

My biggest complaint from the first show was the lazy depiction of the tobacco company executives. Their constant coughing, a tired smoking cliché, undermined the strength of the point that the show was trying to make. Also, the German researcher with the heavy accent was a bit much (Leni Riefenstahl ended up with Greenpeace, not Philip Morris after all).

Going forward, I hope the writers are not trying to be like LA Law and use Mad Men to make weekly social statements via the clients the agency takes on. However, the possibility that the Nixon campaign of 1960 will be a plot element for future shows makes me nervous.

A side note -- who is going to run commercials during a show that basically presents advertising as one big lie?

All that being said, Mad Man's main character, the agency's creative director Don Draper, makes it all work. His "story" is fleshed out in small pieces throughout the first episode. He's a successful, yet jaded, executive. He's a decorated veteran (it's not clear yet if it's WW2 or Korea). His sexually charged interaction with a department store heiress/would be client was great to watch.

The show's ending, where a world weary Don slumps home (revealing his marital status) and tenderly seeks refuge with his kids, was an inspired and moving ending (especially for a first episode).

I'll be watching.
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