The Thinker 2: The Electric Boogaloo

Barack Obama: Conservative hero

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Obama tripled the number of troops in Afghanistan, cut taxes, supported new nuclear reactors, signed an executive order that upholds the restriction on federal funds for abortions and now is opening up the eastern seaboard to oil companies. So why all the partisan bickering? Because it’s fun to superimpose his face over the Joker’s, that’s why! Ha ha! Hilarious!

If I were a staunch liberal, I’d superimpose Obama’s face on Two-Face about now.

If McCain had won, would the fringe left wing be photoshopping his face over Ziggy?

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How not to be leered at like a plate of spaghetti

I don’t drink alcohol or eat candy or desserts when I am in training. “I’m in training” is the manly way to turn down a drink or a piece of chocolate cake, by the way. “I’m on a diet” makes all the guys around you look at you as if you’re wearing a frilly pink taffeta dress – and not in the same way that they would look at a woman wearing a frilly, pink dress, either.

Anyway, I’m restricted to getting my calories from a limited number of healthy food items. I have a hard time not overeating those things, though. I love a big pot of whole grain pasta. I gulp that stuff down by the pound. If I were in Jamaica, I’d be a pastafarian. If I were a nut, I’d be a pasta-chio. If I were a terminator, I’d say “Pasta la vista, baby!” Ok, that’s it with the puns. They’re past-a their prime (sorry!).

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GOP: Proactive, not active!

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Mitch McConnell announced this morning that the Senate Republicans were unanimously in opposition to Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, calling the pick “An irresponsible choice. Mr. Obama has decided to select an activist judge who will rule on ideological grounds rather than respect the rule of law.” Tom Coburn stated that he felt that the nominee was clearly unqualified. Conservatives on the judicial committee also remarked that “Mr. Obama’s pick clearly does not understand or value Supreme Court precedent and previous federal court rulings, except in cases where overturning a hundred years or so of them will benefit the Republican party.” Mr. Obama responded to the critiques with “What nominee? I’m not picking anyone until next week at least.”

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The bitter end

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One upshot of the new health care regs is that women can’t be charged more than men. The rationale is that being a woman is not a choice, so it is a form of discrimination. So if we only priced insurance based on preventable factors, we wouldn’t set rates based on age, since no one can stop time. We’d base the rates on body mass index (BMI), alcohol consumption, blood pressure and other health related metrics. I’m cool with that, but millions of people who assure me that they are just “big boned” may find that system to be discriminatory, too.

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I find it discriminatory that I (as a fit male) have to pay for fat, smoking women, though I use the service so much less frequently. Just for that, I plan to die a long, slow debilitating death that consumes huge resources to keep me going for decades. Picture me angrily waving my cane from my hospital bed when I’m 110 years old and strung up with more tubes and wires than a marionette. I shall rage, rage against the dying of the light! I will NOT go gently into that good night, Sonny Boy!

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Sarah Palin, gift from God to snark writers everywhere

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It just occurred to me that I could write a blog exclusively about Sarah Palin and never ever run low on material. To paraphrase Dave Barry, wouldn’t “Sarah Palin & the Wingnuts” be a great name for a 70’s tribute band? 1770’s, that is.

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Palin’s new gaffe is that her Fox News show is trying to prove that Tea Party kooks aren’t racist. They showed clips of upcoming interviews and (gasp) – LL Cool J? Turns out that LL gave the interview with someone else in 2008, and Fox is (another gasp) playing fast & loose with the truth.

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Ok, I shouldn’t blame Palin on this one. It was a decision of the network suits. When LL called them on this stunt (and did they think that he wouldn’t?), they said “We are cutting his interview from the special and wish him the best with his fledgling acting career." Oh snap! You got dissed, bro!

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Since LL has been acting longer than Fox News has existed, I wanted him to return the best of wishes for Fox’s fledgling news channel, but he instead said some cliché thing about how only you can bring peace to yourself.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20100331/ts_ynews/ynews_ts1387

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Heroes Season 3: A Kinder and Gentler Super Psycho Villain

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I’m watching Heroes for the third season, and I’m usually pretty good at following things through turn-on-a-dime-bizarre-plot-twists, but they’re losing me. They’re jumping around it time and space trying to save the world somehow from some unknown threat. The 4-years-in-the-future people are clearly not operating on the same rule system as the present-day people. The goody-two-shoes cheerleader is now a cold blooded assassin. On the other hand, ex-evil-Sylar, who was the penultimate killing machine in Season 1 is now a laid back, sweater-wearing, doting father. I hope he used his telekinetic ability to change diapers. I certainly would have.

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I know what they really need to do: Introduce another eight or ten characters with new wacky powers. Yeah, that would really clear things up.

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And in an alternate Universe, “Garfield” is funny once in a while

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Someplace, in an alternate reality, Auguste Rodin creates a sculpture of a seated man with a knitted brow in 1880. But in this reality, the man is on the latrine and the sculpture is titled “The Stinker”. World history is largely the same there, aside from that they have world peace, a cure for most cancers and cheap, clean energy.

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When two similar things happen it always heralds a new trend

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They’re doing big budget remakes of Tron and Clash of the Titans. So what early 80s dud will be remade next, I wonder? I’m going to cash in my 401K to buy the rights to the Police Academy series. No, wait, Breakin’ and Breakin’ 2: The Electric Boogaloo. They’re ripe. I can feel it.

A shmorgasboard of short takes

Republicans claim that Pelosi is “backing down to liberals in her party”. She is a liberal in her party. She’s backing down to herself?
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A lot of people get black toenails from running. My wife likes to check up on them in a way that’s weird and a little creepy. I wonder if she keeps a chart somewhere that tracks how many are black so she can report them on CNBC.
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I hear all about the great deals you can get on hotels in this economy, but then I go to find some in the town that I’m actually going to at the time that I’m going to be there, and I don’t see any of these alleged deals. Bah, the economy is great, and that sucks.

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Sometimes I get mad at myself. Then I stop talking to myself. And then there are the mistrustful sideways glances as I pass myself in the hallway and awkward silences in the car – because, you know, I carpool with myself, too. Eventually, there is a real heart-to-heart, tearful reconciliation, etc. But there’s that lingering self-doubt that nags me.
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Speaking of doubt, I saw the Merrill Streep movie “Doubt”. There was no background music. Anyone who bought the soundtrack got ripped off.

I thought that my wife enjoy “Doubt”, but her only comment was that Streep filmed it right after Mama Mia. So she went from playing someone much younger than she really is to playing someone that is her real age. That talent is what I call “acting”. Yet, she was more insightful than my observation about the suckers who plunked down $15.99 for a CD featuring 74 minutes of tape hiss.

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We saw Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince”, in which Harry finds an old text book of spells that guarantees him academic excellence and success in defeating his arch nemesis Voldemort. So obviously, Harry decides to get rid of it. Although it would save his life and the world from evil, apparently gray-area cheating in a magic potion class is by far the worse crime.

The book belongs to “The Half Blood Prince”, which plays no part in the plot, save the fact that no one knows who this person is. Then at the end “Oh, by the way, I’m the Half Blood Prince”. Ta-da!

So in the final chapter, do we find out what the hell happened to Voldemort’s nose, or what?

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I keep up my physique, but my clothes make me look frumpy. Yes, I really am too sexy for my shirt. So I went out with the wife to get new threads. I still think they make me look like a sack of potatoes. So there’s really no help, except wearing spandex like a superhero. It is a crime to keep my chiseled bod under wraps.

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I saw Glen Beck’s book. He’s dressed in some kind of Soviet officer’s outfit. I’d think it was a spoof, but I checked, and that’s his real book. Wow. Like most conservative blowhards, he never actually served in the military, so he may have no idea what a US uniform looks like. He’s also a divorced former drug addict/alcoholic – traits that also seem helpful if you’re a conservative talking head.

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So there I am in Denver, and every 2 blocks or so, you get accosted by someone from an organization that supports the homeless. In the in-between blocks, you get accosted by an actual homeless person requesting your assistance directly. What do I look like, a freakin’ ATM to them?

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On Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”, he changed into a werewolf, but then started dancing with zombies. What’s up with that?

I had a dream that quaaludes cause global warming.

Here’s the contradiction that I get from people. When I say that I want to run a marathon, I get all kinds of accolades and well wishes and “Go for it!” from everyone. But, if I say that I’m training and that I get tired a lot and I’m a little dissatisfied with my progress, they always start questioning why I’m doing it.

If everyone knows that I could run a marathon if I only train for one, why bother actually training and running it?
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Why were Quaaludes such a popular drug in the 70s? I can tell why they’re not anymore. Who wants to rock out to a song called “Gettin’ Sleepy With It”?

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It’s cold outside today. Yup. That proves there is no such thing as global warming.

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February is Black History Month. I’m told that March is Women’s History Month. When the hell is White Dude’s History Month? Since a recent high school survey found that most students couldn’t identify that Columbus sailed prior to 1750 or when the Civil War was fought (it was multiple choice, and the answers were in increments of 50 years), On the other hand, 97% of high school students knew that Martin Luther King Jr. gave the “I have a dream” speech. I argue that the history of white dudes is not being taught in the classroom.

The results of that survey are being interpreted as “high schools don’t teach humanities, therefore there is too much focus on math & science”. I’ve got news – they don’t teach that, either.

Goofus votes for Theo Therguy. Gallant votes for Hogen Mogen.

In economics, you learn about substitutes. Caffeine is substitute for cocaine. Far cheaper, legal, provides most of the same effects, doesn’t carry as many of the health repercussions, it’s widely available and socially accepted. Why the hell would anybody choose cocaine? Seems like you’d only resort to an expensive substitute like cocaine if you couldn’t find a Starbucks. Like that could ever happen.

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I’ve been planning out my campaign strategy to be elected to the local School Board. I think that my opponent, Theo Therguy, would try to turn the whole thing into a negative ad campaign, whereby he intones that voting for Hogen Mogen turns you queer. Trying to play the “I know you are, but what am I” card, is he? Well, I’d expect that from an unimaginative sack of sh!t like him. I shall disprove his accusation by showing several of my supporters having hot, lurid, heterosexual fornication; shot with grainy features to make it appear as if it were a secretly placed surveillance tape. New campaign slogan “If ya wanna get some, vote for da Mogen!”
The ad will conclude with me, dressed like a pimp. “My name is Ho-bling-gen Mo-Fo-gen, y’all. Yo damn straight I approve o’ dis message. Peace-out, dawg! Boo-ya!”
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When people say “Can’t see the forest through all the trees”, what do they really mean? How many trees does it take to make a forest? Where does it break the confines of “grove” and become “forest”? I never could figure that one out. Same with “Can’t win for loosing!” If I could learn such things, by golly, nothing would be beyond my grasp.
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I read Highlights last week. They still have that “Goofus and Gallant” juxtaposition. Shame on your parents for naming you Goofus. If your name is Goofus, I say you have license to burn down the school. That kid is pretty nice given that his name is Goofus, if you ask me.

Gallant made a fabulous sand castle with doors and windows that really opened, and Goofus spent his time stuffing dirt up another kid’s nose. Ok, I get it already. Don’t act like Goofus, don’t make friends with him. Don’t even make eye contact if he comes near.

Or the corporate cross promotion vehicle version:Gallant drinks Powerade©, the sports energy drink.Goofus drinks store brand sugary cola.

Or the Kentucky version:Gallant politely spits his chaw into a cup.Goofus squirts it into the air and claims to be practicing long distance spitting for the Skoal© contest at the county fair.

Maybe it was Gallant who was secretly deviant. You always saw how Gallant would let others use the rest room ahead of him or how thoroughly he cleaned his hands after he finished. But they never told you about him purposefully peeing all over the toilet seat.

Maybe Goofus knew all along about this kind of thing but kept it to himself. After being accused of all these nasty and nit picky things by that smug jerk, Gallant, for all these years, no one believed Goofus. I imagine that Goofus was really a pretty decent kid with a few flaws. Years later, he turns to an old stack of Highlights magazine and sees how every minor mistake he made was fodder for ridicule by a generation of kids. That’s the breaking point that snaps Goofus into a shooting spree.
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You can use statistics to prove 99% of anything, at least 68% of the time.

Talking mimes, baguettes and Valentine's for preschoolers

Why was the 70s a breeding ground of bad pop music? I’m not talking about “bad” as in “good”, like things were in those topsy-turvy 80s. I mean just sucky. I’m not even referring to the current climate, where every new act is a media zombie and the product is soulless, overproduced and dull. When else could Minnie Riverton (Lovin’ You – is easy ‘cause you’re beautiful) have had a big hit with such a over-the-top, saccharine and cheese-packed song? Back then, it wasn’t even considered an abhorrent nightmare of sap that strains the eardrums and sends small pets scurrying when she hits the upper registers of human auditory ability are tested as the song is today. In fact, if you look in dictionaries from that time, and turn to the page with “sh!ttiest song in all of recorded history”, you usually won’t even find an entry.

Don’t even get me started on Captain & Tenille, who not only scored a string of hits, culminating with “Muskrat Love”, but went on and got their own variety show. Variety shows were pretty standard stuff in the 70s, considering they even gave one to Shields & Yarnell, a pair of mimes. TV execs: Mimes on television, you say? Yes, we’ve got to capitalize on this mime-wave that’s sweeping the country. Ha, you try that, radio guys! Our ratings will be through the roof! Oh, that’s “crime wave”, not “mime wave”? Put ‘em on anyway. A full hour on the Tuesday night lineup. If that doesn’t work, give those mimes a radio show.
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Another outdated movie review - I just saw “Les Miserables” from 1998. The premise is that this guy stole a loaf of bread and was sentenced to some grossly unjust amount of time in prison. He served 19 years and then was let out on parole. He broke parole and became a fugitive. There’s inspector Cleseau chasing him around France for an additional 19 years. After 38 years the Parisian law enforcement machine will not let up the persecution of the criminal mastermind responsible for perpetrating the great baguette caper of 1771. Sacre bleu!

And a baguette really ought to be a “little bagel”, dontcha think?
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I don’t usually tell tales of my kids. Kid stories are either sickeningly sweet, or just sickening; like when the subject matter involves the frequency, color or consistency of poop. Then comes some vignette of how it wound up in various locations not normally associated with fecal matter. TMI, anyone?

A non-poop, non-sickeningly sweet story: They had little Valentine’s parties at their day care. Of course it’s healthy to shove two year olds into the notions of romantic love with those of differing or similar genders, so long as no one feels left out. Anyway, I looked at the little dinky cards that they exchanged, the cheapest cards that could possibly be purchased and thrown away because the kids can’t read. Anyway, there were some with random cartoonish hearts and Cinderellas and Snow Whites. For the boys, there were a few Spiderman cards with slight puns like “I’m stuck on you!”

The most bizarre and inappropriate cross-marketing attempts were the Transformers valentines. I’m a testosterone poisoned macho guy, but I just don’t see any correlation between robotic monstrosities and 4 year old puppy love. There was some rather stern looking face of armor peering over the side of a military transport unit from outer space. “I’M SEARCHING FOR YOU, VALENTINE.” Another, a Transformer with a gigantic war-weapon-doodle-whacker-laser-cannon. “I SHALL PROVE THAT I AM THE BEST, VALENTINE!” At least the gun wasn’t pointed directly at the reader, but nothing says “I (heart) U” than vaguely human, war-mongering chunks of metal with glowing red eyes. They must have Decepticon cards for the kids you don’t really like. Next to transformers and terminators, even ninjas look like little cupids.

If I'm not Star Spangled Bible Thumping Patriotism, then the terrorists have already won

I think I’ll run for office playing the terrorism card. “Vote for me or we’re all going to DIE.” I’ll probably have to start small, like running for school board or county something-or-other. Any negative press that I get will be met with a rebuttal invoking the fact that the terrorists have read the local News Graphic online, and are laughing at how America is weakening itself in these desperate times. I’ll pull the religious track, too. *Vote for Me or We’ll All Die AND Go to Hell!*

Help the government - don't pay taxes.

I’m puzzled on Grover Norquist’s suggestion that cutting taxes will result in smaller government, yet every other Republican says cutting taxes will increase government revenue, thus expanding government. Using that logic, I am in favor of smaller government, and towards that end, I favor higher tax rates, which will shrink total revenue.

If tax cuts always always always produce more revenue for the government, I have a plan. First, elect me president for two terms. I’ll cut down taxes like virgin rainforest. This will stimulate the economy and generate more tax revenue. Then more tax cuts, which will then produce even more revenue, which will result in yet more tax cuts, yielding even greater revenue. How can we possibly turn off this colossal spigot of tax money? We can’t give this stuff away fast enough folks! We’ll be drowning in it!

On the other hand, the liberal version of economics is “Tax the rich, feed the poor till there are no rich no more.” That’s great, but when there are no more rich folks, you’re left with a nation of poor folks, who are starving again.

Alexander, Spiderman, Star Wars

I made the mistake of watching a documentary on Alexander the Great before I watched the Oliver Stone movie “Alexander”. Now I know where the movie took liberties. The movie presents Alexander as completely innocent of his father’s murder, although historians are skeptical. But historians don’t even know if Alexander was gay or not.

The movie ignored the fact that Alexander initially fought alongside his father Philip. Alexander saved the day with a daring charge. But he wasn’t rewarded for it, and that caused a schism between father and son. So in real life Alexander killed his dad. The movie misses that battle entirely. Then after a brief historical monologue, he’s suddenly in control over half of Asia.

Some of the real life things that Alexander did, if shown in a Hollywood production, would simply not be believed. He rode at the front of his cavalry during attacks. He’d also be decked out with some garish antennae on his helmet. Why someone who presents such an obvious target wasn’t just wacked immediately is not believable, but it was true. He once managed to get within a few feet of the Persian king Darius, who more conventionally sat at the back of his lines, surrounded by an army of personal guards. Again, most of this wasn’t in the movie.

Alexander destroyed the Persians when outnumbered six to one, while taking an astonishingly low 100 casualties. He once invaded a city, got drunk and ordered it burned it to the ground. The next day he was like “I said THAT? Aw, man!” Another time, Alexander was laid siege to a walled city. He got to the top of the wall, turned around, and found that all his troops were still at the bottom. Instead of regrouping, he jumps forward into combat alone. When they found Alexander, he had an arrow to his lung, from which he survived, but never fully recovered. Truth is stranger than fiction, everyone knows, but you can still present it. Instead, the movie shows Alex getting zinged by a random arrow in a jungle battle.

Genghis Khan is probably going to be the next historical figure for a big budget movie, he’s ripe for it. Great conqueror, growing Asian market. Genghis, your time has come.
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For yet another years-too-late movie review, I saw Spiderman 3. It’s sort of a jumbled mass of plotlines, none of which were apparently good enough to take center stage. Spidey is covered by some alien thing that crawled out of a meteor. Very 1950s sci-fi. But what are the chances that the same guy who got bit by the one radioactive spider in the world also gets covered with the only alien entity that fell to Earth?

So Peter Parker brings a little bit of this gooey alien thing to his professor of indeterminable field of science. He’s a professor, darn it – like the guy on Gilligan’s Island. A little bit of goo is flopping around on the table, and the prof advises Pete to “Stay away from that. It appears to have properties of a symbiote.” And we know this how?

There’s also this guy who can turn into sand. As the guy is turning into sand for the first time, we see a zoom in to his DNA, which is changing from the double helix to some crystalline-looking helix. Never mind that at a molecular level, crystals don’t look like crystals, they look like molecules. And, they’re never arranged in helixes, they’re arranged in crystalline lattices, which would explain why they are called crystals and why they look like crystals.

But anyway, back to the alien symbiote, the “professor” (and Maryann!) has done some lab work, and the results are in. The symbiote enhances the qualities of the host, especially aggression. How do we know this? We’re treated to the microscope view. There are a bunch of human red blood cells and one little alien black cell that is punching them. I swear I’m not making that up, but I wish I were.

Peter Parker is also battling a cheesey dude who is trying to muscle in on Peter’s turf at the Daily Bugle. Yeah, two photographers go to war over the lowest position at the newspaper, like all those people who fight over positions as the Wal-Mart greeter.

The culmination of all the Spider-nonsense is that the alien can be defeated by the sound of clanging metal. There was a Twilight Zone episode where some braggart told impossible tall tales of his heroism that no one really believed. One day he was picked up by aliens and he defeated them by playing his harmonica. Obviously, this was also not believed by anyone he told. Spiderman, however, tries to pass this ridiculous plot point on to the viewer as clever cinema.

I know. At any movie where the titular character wears spandex, I should just check my brain at the door. But I read graphic novels that are thought provoking and erudite. Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman lay down some seriously great literature.
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Star Wars was a great movie, but when you watch it again and again, no good guy with a name ever dies.

I may be a sociopath, but I'm not crazy enough to try to get a state employee to DO something

Every time a research study is finished, the researchers always follow it up with “… but further research is needed.” Why is that? I’m stumped. I suppose more research will illuminate the answer.
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Ha! That James Cameron got shown up by his ex-wife at the Oscars. He must feel like a total loser.

As loser-ish as someone can feel with a nine digit paycheck, that is. Yeah, she really showed him. Ha!

Speaking of movies, I’m watching “Watchmen”. It’s ok so far, but the soundtrack is composed almost entirely of pop hits from the 60s and 70s. I like the songs, but every scene features an old hit. This isn’t The Big Chill, guys.
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My local bishop made a point to heavily critique Pat Robertson’s view about Haiti’s earthquake being some end result of a centuries-old pact with the Devil. The bishop’s point was that if you believe the earthquake was an act of God punishing the wicked, then you can also conclude that you, not having been smote, are holy. The Haitians, having been traumatized, are not. Nevertheless, kudos to Bishop Ron Gainer for taking a stand for sanity. Not all organized religion is screwball hypocrisy.
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And a great review for “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog”. The title is a little off-putting, but it is apt. This guy named Dr. Horrible has a video blog, and he spontaneously breaks out in song. What else could you call it?
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I was looking for a movie review on IMDB.com, and there are a hundred reviews that all start out with the warning that they contain spoilers. Why do people write spoilers into a review?

True, I might put some spoilers in if I am discussing a movie, but that’s usually when the movie is really popular, old or just plain sucky. With the popular or old movies, I sort-of expect that everyone cool has seen it before me. If you can’t muster up enough cool to be on par with dismally nerdy me, then you not only deserve to accidentally read a spoiler, but get the online movie review equivalent of a wedgie to go along with it. With the abysmal movies that I see, you would truly be better off being spoiled and do something cooler than I did with my two hours on Earth, like go clean bathroom grout.
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This just in – the planets will not all line up in 2012. The Earth will not become the center of the galaxy. The poles will not spontaneously invert or shift 90 degrees towards the sun. Read Astronomy, not Astrology, people.

Let’s drop the whole 2012 thing into the circular file marked “Y2K Preparation” and be done with it.
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Both Dr. Horrible and the Watchmen’s Rorschach were borderline sociopaths, when you come down to it. We, the viewers are treated to their innermost thoughts. These individuals have difficulty reconciling the fact that such a large majority of the population fails to see the world the way that they do. So this is where I come in.

I’m really not trying to be a sociopath, but I saw a clip on nutrition from the Today Show. Natalie Morales seems totally amazed at the “eat your vegetables” advice. Eat lean protein. Eat low sugar, high fiber grains. Drink water several times per day. Do not over-eat cake, cookies, beer or Big Macs.

What is the matter with these people? How many times do they have to hear garden-variety good sense before they listen? I understand why no one follows the good advice, but to not even know? Is America that pathetic?

Aside from all the alienation, we sociopaths don’t even get a cool slang term like the psychos do. When was the last time you called someone a “socio”? Catatonics get “basket case”, “vegetable” and a few others. Schizos get a moniker, but it doesn’t pass spell-check. But, neither does “spellcheck”.

Alcoholics get “Alky”, which would make a great animated mascot - in case you were trying to recruit binge drinkers to give up and finally join the proud ranks of those who have made that lifestyle choice.
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There was another bird in my house this morning. All told, I think this makes number 6. It’s been a few years since the last time. Why birds? I don’t know. I’m sure that Pat Robertson would chalk it up to my great-great-great grandfather (on my mother’s side) who didn’t make a deal with the Devil, but had a side bet with one of Beelzebub’s lower clerical assistants.

I can only imagine what the bird tells his bird friends after we chase him out. “Yeah, I went in that house once. They yell and scream and wave stuff around a lot. What a hoot! I'm going to tweet this!”
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In the break room, there’s a spot where management posts some insipid motivational quote. They pledged to update it every two weeks. 4 months ago they burned out. The last quote is eternally abandoned on something about finishing what you started. It’s sort of an ironic monument to the futility of motivating a state employee.

Will Sarah Palin please go home now?

Kentucky just lost out on hundreds of millions of federal dollars for education. Apparently, the Race To The Top money will go to Tennessee or Delaware instead. Those states have nearly 100% buy-in from the school districts and legislature. Kentucky, on the other hand, has some ideological qualms about accepting money from the feds because the President is not of their political party. Thank you, Republicans!

Two years ago, every tiny dot on a map was grabbing for homeland security grants. Training fire crews in how best to handle a burning sky-scraper is worthwhile. An air conditioner for a police station in Carrollton, KY – less so.

The feds buying office equipment for small counties is really protecting us from terror. Bettering our education system is SOCIALISM.
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Supposedly, it was left-wing media bias that was keeping the good news from Iraq and Afghanistan out of the papers. Now with a Democratic majority, there still isn’t much in the paper. News reporters aren’t going to broadcast how many soldiers didn’t get hurt because an IED was discovered and diffused. The papers aren’t going to splash a banner headline about how a fragile peace is holding in Anbar for another day. That’s not liberalism, that’s the nature of the business. “If it bleeds, it leads.”
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Why won’t Sarah Palin just shut up and go away? She wrote in an op-ed http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/08/AR2009120803402.html?hpid=opinionsbox1 . If any publication denied her as much space as she demands, she’d sic the partisan hounds of bias accusation against them. Yet, given enough space, she rambles on with pretzel logic.

She calls into question the science behind global warming in one paragraph, essentially saying that climatologists have no idea what is going on. The next paragraph begins with the unsupported assertion that the warming is part of a “natural, cyclical environmental trend”. She says that we can’t be sure that the effects are man-made, yet in the very next sentence she is unequivocal. “Any potential benefits of proposed emissions reduction policies are far outweighed by their economic costs.” Does she know what the benefits are? Some scientists predict that global warming will destroy as much as 25% of the global GDP. The top 50 economies currently generate a combined $40 trillion. Saving more than $10 trillion is certainly a potential benefit that would outweigh the mere billions of projected cost. The cost savings are not guaranteed, but she did use the word “potential”.

Even according to global warming skeptics, the benefit would be that the world population would simply live in a cleaner environment – which still has value. Take as much money as you would pay to live with better air and water quality for you and your kids and multiply by the 6.5 billion people who breathe air on this planet. The benefit is somewhere between that number and the trillions in global output saved. It’s a big number.

She makes a big deal about the emails from the University of East Anglia. But did she actually read them? If she did, she’d see that most of the brouhaha is really finding suspicious phrases and twisting them to mean something damning. She uses the word “damning”, too. Essentially, she and her right wing compatriots are really doing the same thing that she disparaged the media for doing to her. Take some awkwardy worded statement and divining the innermost core thoughts of that person or group. On the other hand, Rush Limbaugh makes truckloads of money by doing that.

And let’s just say that the East Anglia emails were obtained illegally by partisan hackers and may have been selectively edited in the process.

And since she’s a creationist, what the f*ck does she know about science anyway?
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Why do the Israelis insist on building settlements on disputed territory? They complain about being constant targets of the Palestinians, and then they want to build on ground after signing a treaty that said that they wouldn’t. The Israeli ambassador compared it to Jews in Manhattan not being allowed to build in Queens. Well, they wouldn’t be allowed if that area in Queens was a nature preserve.

Don’t they get it? Israel has few friends in the world. If the US ditched them, they’d be falafel.
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I like this headline: “Private guards kill Somali pirate for first time”. The second time he was killed it was by publicly funded law enforcement, and the third time that pirate was killed it was by a well-armed vigilante. The fourth time was quite accidental; something involving a 7-speed blender and a noxious mixture of bleach and ammonia. By then, he was so feeble that he got knocked off for the fifth time by a boy scout trying to earn his eagle badge.
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I agree with David Frum, conservative writer. He chides the Republicans for putting all their effort to blocking any kind of a health care bill instead of working to incorporate the things that they wanted to see in it. Tort reform and cutting costs could have been in it in exchange for their support. Instead, they didn’t understand the limits on the legislative power of an underwhelming minority.

But they’re still at it, trying to undo a law by using the legal system. Ironic that the party dead set against frivolous lawsuits so often resorts to this tactic.

Little known fact: The first lawsuit filed in the 2000 presidential election was by the Bush lawyers. Sore winners then, sore losers now.

Running

So both of my treadmills are down – again. I’m just getting over a thigh injury, and I’m already starting up an old foot injury. If both I and my equipment could stay healthy for three months in a row, who knows what I could do?

I’m trying to use this setback to as much advantage as I can. I don’t usually run outside if I have a treadmill option. But the marathon is, of course, a road race. There are hills, there is wind, the road doesn’t move underneath you. So road training is much better for race prep. On the down side, I don’t run very hard when it’s dark and I’m tired. On the treadmill, I sometimes think “I should be running faster than this.” And I punch it up a few tenths.

I have trouble sprinting outside. I’m a little bit vain and I don’t like anyone seeing me resting in between sets. I did it one morning at 5am. Sure enough, every time I stopped, someone came along walking their dog or just out for an early morning stroll asking me if I was ok.

Only 2 weeks until the big event. I’m not doing too badly. If you start with enough time and you put in your miles, there’s a high degree of success. But as you approach the race, there’s a greater need for precision. So, anything that happens now makes a greater impact on the overall result. If I eat too much or over-train in February, it hardly matters. If I do that the night before the race, it will mess up my time noticeably.

“Success” is what you say that it is. Before training, you say “I’ll do what I did last year and I will get about the same time.” You start to make some gains, and it becomes “I’ll beat last year by a few minutes.” You have one great run and “I’ll shatter my personal record!” Then you get tired, injured or lazy. “I’ll just beat last year by a minute.” On race day you’re down to “Just let me finish.” Halfway through “If I walk from here, my time will be…” And then the desperate stretch after all hope is gone “I can probably crawl… Just let this misery end!”

Bipartisanship: An endagered species on the brink

I'm a Republican, but I'm no partisan hack that just wants to say "hooray for my team" versus promoting things that are beneficial to the country. Bipartisanship vs. more gridlock. Compromise vs. petty sniping. That's why I have problems with people as disparate as Nancy Pelosi and Ann Coulter. They bicker and crack wise when they should be offering sound policy and thoughtful commentary (respectively). Neither party is the "enemy". Neither party wants to destroy America. If either party had a 100% majority, it would only hurt the nation. So no, I'm not rooting for larger Democratic or Republican gains this November. I'm rooting for the true underdog, the spirit of cooperation.

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I got the old British TV series “The Prisoner” from the library. I’ve been reading rave reviews for decades now, so it was about time I checked it out. The set up is essentially that some secret agent resigns, but then his secret agency kidnaps him and sticks him in a weird island resort called “The Village” and keep calling him “Number Six”. They want “information”. They never phrase it in the form of a question, so he never answers. I don’t know what information they want, as they reveal that they have been secretly observing this guy since he was a child.
Number 2 (threateningly): We want INFORMATION.
Number 6: So? Dial 4-1-1.

In the very first minutes of the show, Number Six quits his agency and packs bags to get out of town. We see a very brief glimpse of a picture of a tropical island that he stashes into his briefcase. We presume that is where he was headed until he is kidnapped and put on – a tropical island. Free of charge he gets a nice furnished apartment and a personal maid. What’s the problem, Six, no tiki bar?

No one escapes The Village due to the least threatening villain ever put on film. It’s a flabby white balloon about three feet across – sorry, this is British – one meter across. It slowly bounces towards you in a threatening manner. Scary! If you stand still long enough like a deer in the headlights, it will land on you and engulf you! Look out! Punching it doesn’t work. I can’t figure out what else to do to defeat the bubble menace. It’s invulnerable! However, Number Six hid in some bushes once, and the orb thing gave up and left. Scary!
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I saw Dracula 2000. Nothing says “timeless classic” like a movie with the year in the title. It was pretty crappy and unscary until the final 10 minutes. Then it was only unscary. This Dracula couldn’t be killed with a stake through his heart, he had to be hung. Anyway, he’s dying on the noose and he says to the girl (there’s always a girl that he’s trying to vampirize) “I release you.” What? He can do that? Un-vampirize someone?

I found it pretty odd that he could say anything while choking to death, too.
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So the Republican media machine is gearing up to attack this health care thing one last time. I can imagine a back room planning strategy session where they argue which cliché would resonate more with their base.
“This plan is nuclear Armageddon for the American people!”
“Nah, that sounds too cold-war-ish.”
“A perfect storm of health care.”
“That George Clooney movie? He polls too high with the female demographic.”
“If this bill is not repealed, the terrorists have already won!”
“I like that, but we’re using that slogan to extend the Bush-era tax cuts.”
“Obamacare is a perfect tsunami of Armageddeathpanel the terrorists won at the holocaust!”
“Great! We go with that.”
“Plus draw some funny pictures of Nancy Pelosi. Look. Haw haw. I drew her with a big mouth and crazy hair! Haw haw!”
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I was listening to the latest stuff from U2 and the latest from the Eagles. It’s not that the Eagles sounded bad. They were good. But they were boring, old, no energy. U2, on the other hand, proves why they are still on their game after nearly three decades. They’re like the Rolling Stones, without the drug overdoses. And the Stones had a 22 year head start.

True, there will only be one Joshua Tree and one Achtung! Baby, but U2 hasn’t forgotten what made them famous. So belt it out, Bono! Rock on, Edge! And you two other guys with regular names, yeah, you’re pretty good, too.

Bob Dylan: A life so profound you can not make heads or tails of it

I saw a Bob Dylan biopic. I see what they were trying to do, so I give them some points. But they kept jumping around in time between six different actors playing Bob, and none of them were called Bob. There was Billy the Kid, Jude Quinn/Jack/Pastor John/Robbie/Woody Guthrie and Arthur something. So there were time jumps, actor transitions and name scrambles in between real, imagined, symbolic and surreal events in Dylan’s life. Cate Blanchett did the best Dylan. Heath Ledger did the worst, followed by Richard Gere. After watching, I don’t feel like I know him better as an artist, a person or a historical figure. Was he really ever a runaway black kid?

The trouble with doing a biopic on Dylan is that he’s still walking around muttering incoherent things, accepting Grammys and doing an odd soundtrack here and there. I’m sure those mumbles are profound, though.

Even when he emails a technical question to a colostomy bag manufacturer, it should be regarded as sacred scripture defining the American troubadour. “Excuse me… I have been using MedCo© 2-ply bags for a few months now, but they leak. Hefty© 3-ply appear to be leak-free, but I they may not be large enough to contain all my waste. Do you have an industrial size?” Ooh, poignant. Topical. Deep.

Maybe he writes all his email in the cryptic pentameter of song.

I’ve been using the Medco for many a moon
The leakage springs forth all but too soon
Hefty© 3-ply could prove to be a boon
And my bag, it needs a-changin’.

Hefty© is the corporate giant to some
Their 3-ply bags, they don’t leak none
But answer my questions, they number one:
How soon will my bag need a-changin’?

Now I need a big bag because I sh!t quite a lot
I’ll take on the small bag if it’s all that you’ve got
I’ll change it ev’ry hour, I’ll give it a shot
When my bag, it needs a-changin’
(harmonica solo)

I turn right now to the corp-or-ation
To solve my problems with def-e-cation
In hopes to find some co-op-eration
‘Cuz my bag, it needs a-changin’.
My bag… it needs.. a-chan-gin’.

There’s a musical biopic due out this spring about the Runaways, the band that spawned Joan Jett and Lita Ford. If it were done like “I’m Not There”, the Dylan pic, it would star John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson, amongst others. Joan Jett could be played by Olympia Dukakis. The part where Lita did a duet with Ozzy would be played by Ginger Spice. Ginger will be Lita, not Ozzy. Ozzy should be played by Morgan Freeman.

Anyway, Jonah Hex is a graphic novel guy coming to the screen this summer. He’s a gunfighter with a horrible scar on his face and a checkered past. His comics are pretty simple. If your last name isn’t Hex, you’re an odds-on candidate for boot hill. I read 25 episodes before they finally gave up his back story, except how he got his scar. How many will I have to read to find out how he invented the hex wrench?
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The UK Wildcats lost. Coach Calipari said that you can’t spell “learning” without an L. I’m think “Yeah, because then you’re EARNING.” And if you take the L out of “lover” then it’s “over”. And if you take the L out of Palin you get “pain”. If you take the U out of “up”, twist the “p” around until it is a “d”, and add “own”, you can spell “vertigo”.

Sports, Palin, Dieting, Avatar and Voodoo

Mark McGuire said that he took steroids. Ooh. Didn’t see that coming.
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Now that Sarah Palin is a newscaster, will she take back all those unkind things she said about the news media?

Doesn’t matter, she’ll quit in a year and a half (or less).
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No one wants to hear about how I want to lose weight. I get no empathy. Weight is a big deal when you’re trying to run. I’m not looking for a lot of empathy, losing weight is easy for me. I hear that it is hard for other people, though. I have empathized for years, but I’m losing patience. I diet. I train. I generally succeed. Yes, it sucks. Yes, I do it. How can you diet for 2 years and not lose any weight? Either your plan stinks or you don’t follow it.
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Two stories on why you should think twice before going to the doctor:

Ignoring everyone’s advice to see a doctor, I got through my back sprain without anything more than a bottle of ibuprophen. Since I’ve been doing runs over 20 miles, I’m going to call it “100%”. I may relapse, but I might do that even with a doctor’s advice.

Story #2: A few months ago, my kindergartener was having these episodes where she wouldn’t behave. I was worried that she would have to go to a child psychologist. He’d set up regular therapy sessions and 5 years later she’d be either still on square 1 or stoned on Ritalin. Anyway, it let up a little before Christmas. Her teacher had a stuffed Santa’s helper “watch” the kids. The Elf on the Shelf did the trick. Yay! So much for the $140 per hour kid’s shrink.
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That James Cameron. One of these days, someone in Hollywood is going to give him a big budget to work with. Then he’ll knock out some real box office gold.

For those who look to the Pope for their movie reviews, he was pretty lukewarm on Avatar. (get it? Luke-warm? The Bible guy? No?) The Vatican said that it was visually stunning, but they didn’t care for its celebration of paganism. But hold your picket signs, they also said it was “harmless”.

I decided to attack any successful pop culture in order to grab the spotlight. I will start with protesting Star Wars for its incestuous overtones between Luke & Leia.
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Bush left office with essentially no new jobs in eight years. The S&P dropped about 4.25% per year, too. Great job, buddy. I want to have a beer with you. And dump it on your smirky head. Even Jimmy "Malaise/Stagfaltion" Carter managed to grow 2.6 million jobs per year and eek out a positive return in the market.
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There’s an earthquake in Haiti, and there is a great, worldwide effort to save the survivors. Except, of course, the extreme Right Wing. They dedicate their efforts to blaming someone. Pat Robertson blames a deal with the Devil, and Rush Limbaugh blames Obama, which means that they both agree in lockstep.

Robertson’s blame fixing doesn’t make any sense. He cites some voodoo ceremony in 1791 that supposedly started the slave revolt in Haiti. God is on the side of slave owners? The French were notoriously evil slave owners. They made the slave owners in the American south seem downright generous. Life in Haiti has never been idyllic, but who would choose a life of slavery and near-starvation over freedom (and near-starvation)? God dealing retribution nine generations after a sin is unhelpful, anyway.

You know what else Pat Robertson’s comments made me think: Voodoo ceremonies work! I’m going to sacrifice a chicken tonight. I don’t have the time or the stomach for the whole thing. I’ll just order McNuggets and inflict pain on my enemies by poking the Avatar action figure with my soda straw. Beware!

The next big thing coming from Apple Inc will definitely exist in 3 dimensional space

Does it make sense to take a course in “Persuasive Speaking” online? It does if you’re Kentucky State University! Ah yes, the finest that academia has to offer.
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I read a Newsweek article about the next big thing coming from Apple. They don’t know for sure when it will be announced and they have no idea what it is. Speculation is that it uses electricity in some form. They think. How do you write an article on that?
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GQ magazine had their 50 best/worst dressed men of the year. Grace Jones made the top 50 at 42 -- despite not being a man. GQ said "Name one man who can make the tuxedo look this cool." Hello? Any one of the top 41 should do it.

But they also said that #1 worst was British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Sure, he looks like he slept in his suit for a few days, but does he look worse than the grey-suit-and-terrible-coif Kim Jung Il? They also had horrid things to say about Nicholas Sarkozy, but I thought he was fairly dapper. French cuffs are so 2007, amiright?
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The Burj Dubai is now open. Tallest building in the world. It looks more impressive than Taipei 101 or the WTC because it rises up out of the desert with no other competing towers to lower its visibility. Of course, there is another tower in the works, Nakheel, that is supposed to be even taller. Just remember that the next time you fill your gas tank.

Tall, grandiose towers are harbingers of economic woe. Famously, the Empire State Building began construction just as the Great Depression started. The World Trade Center and the Sears Tower (it’s not the Sears Tower now, whatchu talkin’ bout, Willis?) both opened in the middle of recessions during the 70s. The Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur opened just as Asian currencies went into free fall. On a more micro scale, the huge Enron tower in Houston opened just before Enron collapsed. The Burj Dubai is an ambitious spectacle, but just a month ago the Dubai government needed an emergency bailout from Abu Dhabi. The Nakheel Tower has been scaled down for financial reasons and may never be “tallest”, if it is completed at all.

I can see some rationale in Manhattan or Taipei for a tower, but in the desert, there is nothing but cheap land. These towers are just manifestations of ego in physical form.

From an acorn comes a mighty oak. From CORNNY comes popcorn.

I got some chain email from a Republican friend that accused Obama and all Democrats of deliberately trying to destroy America so they could make Americans more dependent on government. But if they collapse the government, how the hell can anyone depend on it? And isn’t total destruction of the Federal Government the principal aim of Conservatives? Strangle it in a bathtub or something?

Obama should be impeached on the grounds that he is guilty of being President while Democrat.

Included in this vast conspiracy was the accusation that ACORN was the principal motivator behind the financial meltdown. If ACORN did half of what they’re accused of I’d be in total awe.

Acorn has an annual budget between $25-40 million and only a fraction comes from tax dollars. What a bang for the buck, ACORN! PACs with ten times as much funding can’t make or break Presidents the way ACORN can. With a budget of a few million, they swindled Wall Street for a few trillion – and they pimp on the side, too! Yes, they are the single most powerful entity in the world today. Oh if only they were a force for good instead of evil! Thank God that we have the Republicans to protect us.

Truth be told, I’m no fan of ACORN. Even without the pimping and embezzlement scandals and allegations of voter fraud, I find those organizations to be at best ineffectual. At worst, a drain on resources that could be better used elsewhere.

But every conservative tirade on ACORN always includes the fact that they register voters from low income areas, who reliably vote Democrat. This is a lesser crime than Mr. Obama’s, but Voting while Liberal is still a class D misdemeanor in these parts. Or it ought to be, just like noodling.

I’m going to create an anti-ACORN group. Conservatives Out for Revenge in November Next Year. CORNNY. I’m going to fraudulently register and re-register and re-re-register (in case they hadn’t been gistered enough the first couple of times) voters from rural farm communities in the south. The generous spigots of conservative money will flow in like a mighty river. If any pimps come to me for help, I’m going to tell them to get the hell out of there. If any power mad politicians come asking how they can skirt the Constitution, I’ll provide free pseudo-legal advice courtesy of Alberto Gonzoles. Instead of bankrupting major Wall St. and International banking firms, I’m going to set my sights on bankrupting poor, slovenly illegal immigrants. I don’t know if that would be easier or harder, being as they’re pretty much wiped out anyway. Then, I’m going to methodically embezzle every damn cent I can lay my hands on and skip town. I’ll keep that part of the ACORN legacy alive.

If there is a tornado, yell "Tornado! Everyone PANIC!!!"

Obama: The Republicans don’t want to do anything. They just want to say “No.”
McConnell: It’s the Democrats that don’t want to listen to us.
Obama: You’re using the “I know you are, but what am I?” defense? What can I do now??
McConnell: Oh snap! We Scooby-doo’d ya, dawg!
Obama: You seriously would never say that to a white president.
McConnell: Daymn, knowwhatI’msayin, yo! Chill. Peace out, bro!

The recent bill for job growth was a package that tries to stimulate jobs through tax incentives for hiring new people. Tax incentives are an inefficient incentive. There’s no way to tell which companies would have hired without the credit. But it promotes some job growth and reduces overall taxes. So why would 36 Republicans vote against it when their mantra is more jobs and less tax? Because they’re as$holes.
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I fixed my old treadmill on Sunday. Great, I had two working treadmills. Wednesday, the new treadmill broke down. Why is it so hard to keep them running?
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Tuesday Morning is a small appliance retail chain in our area. 9/11 happened on a Tuesday morning. Don’t ever shop there. Inside is a hellhole of horror and you’d be lucky to escape with your life. Worse, right wing crazies will promote your miserable shopping experience as a jingoistic cause célèbre and use your name to justify a radical, conservative agenda. If you need a blender that badly, order it online.
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I got advance warning that my building has a tornado drill planned for tomorrow. I'm going to stake out my safe space in the stairwell and mark it with tape. If anyone is there, standing in my tape box, I'm going to start pummelling relentlessly. I don't like being jostled while waiting for hypothetical tornadoes to blow on by. It's freakin' inhuman. Barbaric.

Running in a cold hell

I’ve heard a lot about how Avatar is now the highest grossing film of all time, and then a lot about how it isn’t the highest grossing film because it simply charges more for tickets. Taking inflation into account, Gone With The Wind is the highest. Avatar is 26th. But “Gone” was re-released five more times. So, you’d also have to take in to account the money made from TV, cable or DVD. Hattie McDaniel gave a great performance, but let’s face it, no one bought a plastic action figure of that sassy maid. There is no “Ten Commandments” video game. But yeah, The Sound of Music soundtrack is sure to be far more profitable than Avatar’s.

You can make a lukewarm movie like Ice Age and not do very well at the box. If you count DVDs, toys and the potential for increasingly suckier sequels and it’s a winner.
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I went to a snow-tubing place last winter. They have this moving sidewalk taking a hundred people 200 feet up an incline, but I can’t keep a treadmill working.

I don’t know if I hate the dark or the cold more, and I don’t know if it matters. I lack a bathroom. But at 4:30am, it’s not too hard to find some privacy. I could pee in the middle of the road if I wanted.

Outdoor runs make my toenails go black. From 2 months of reduced schedule due to injury, I was down to only one blackie (although he has told me that he prefers the term “toenail of color”). Now the damaged nails are in the filibuster-proof majority.

Running outside is like visiting hell, except that it’s really cold, and afterwards I have to get the kids dressed and get myself to work.

Avatar, Lost, Gran Torino and the skinniest house in NYC

80% of Americans think the Supreme Court got the ruling on corporate election spending wrong. That’s a big number. Explain to me how the Supreme Court overturning 100 years of election laws and court precedent is not “judicial activism”. It is not in society’s long term interest to have ever more expensive political campaigns.
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I read a synopsis that said “Avatar” takes place in “a world beyond imagination”. What could possibly be beyond my imagination? I just couldn’t imagine. It’s probably unspeakably awful. How awful? What part of “unspeakable” didn’t register with you?
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The “skinniest house in NYC” just sold for $2.1 million. It is 8.5 feet wide. I saw pictures. It’s nice. At $2121 per sq ft, is it a bargain? One comment was “It doesn't feel like you're in the city.” By strange coincidence, my cubicle is also 8.5 feet wide. I wouldn’t feel like I was in the city, either. I would feel like I was at work.

If you buy the “skinniest house in NYC”, don’t eat baloney and American cheese. You’ll have to move.
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I saw Clint Eastwood’s “Gran Torino”. I can’t mock it except to say that if he titled it “El Camino” it would have been a much different movie. Better or worse, I can’t say.
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I’m getting a little tired of the “Lost” formula for non-plot development.

Someone Who Knows What’s Going On: You have all been brought here for a reason.

Locke: What is it?

Someone Who Knows: You have been sought out because… Aaggh! I’ve been struck by a randomly occurring plot complication! I’m foaming at the mouth! Crap, I’m dead.”

Hurley: Aw, dude! I think he ate some bad baloney. Or maybe it was the Cheez-Wiz.

(Cut to commercial/ cue creepy music)

I’m proud of being an American. I’m proud of our freedoms, our wealth, our historical achievements and our global leadership and the whole star-spangled thing. But then there’s American cheese. Individually wrapped slices of orange colored crap. We invent the internet but we put our national brand on a Velveeta knock-off? We concoct square Cheez-Wiz and make it “ours”?

Even the Aussies weren’t stupid enough to risk the name of their country on a sh!tty vegemite sandwich.

Baloney: Pasty, tasteless and pedestrian, these aren’t anything more than oversized, raw hot dogs.

Don’t even get me started on Wonder Bread. Just don’t.
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Conan O’Brian got $45 million just to quit. I think he’s a nice guy, but he was also a mid-level talent who didn’t pull in the ratings. John Calipari, the new UK b-ball coach is getting flak over an $8 million per year package, and he turned us from missing the NCAA playoffs to getting ranked top 3 in the nation.

How many people see talk show hosts and think “Gee, that’s hard. I could never do that job.” I know it’s more difficult than it looks, but Vanna White says turning those letters is hard, too.

Some fans always think that they could coach a highly competitive team. But when you get down to it, they really just want to call the plays during the game. The closest that these wanna-bes have ever come to a real sports practice is when they trained for the competitive speed eating by chowing down 5 baloney and cheese sandwiches in two minutes.

O’Brian’s severance is outrageous on the level of banker’s bonuses. If you asked anyone in 2007, they would say “Ha-ha! I’d love the money, but if I were a bank CEO, I’d wreck the company and tank the economy! Ha-ha! They’d never pay me a bonus!”

Non-news, long dead music stars and a review of a dozen movies that I haven't seen

Non-news event that is being blasted across the headlines: Holiday travelers face delays at airports! Oh, I would never have guessed! Air travel can be frustrating? What? With all the money, technology and the 80+ years of commercial air flight, that they’d have all the bugs worked out. But, there are problems you say? You’re kidding! Really? That probably would be news here in KY, where most people travel by horse and buggy. The standard at the airport is a biplane and next year we move up to the DC-3.

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I like to listen to classical music while I work. I’m out of touch with modern popular culture, so I like to imagine what the cool kids of the 18th century listened to for kicks.

“Listen, the orchestra is doing Marriage of Figaro Overture.”
“That is so overplayed. That and Die Zauberflöte.”
“Yeah! Every goddamn recital! I’m sick of them. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik deserves it.”
“Dude, you check out the new Requiem by Mozart? That is slammin’!”
“Yeah, he’s really trying for a comeback with that one.”
“Good luck, I heard he’s dead.”
“Oh man. Sucks. I was really into his early stuff.”
“You know the Alphabet Song?”
“A-B-C-D-E-F-G… everyone knows that.”
“That was Mozart, bro.”
“No way!”
“Way.”
“So what are you into now?”
“That new guy, Haydn.”
“Eh, he’s ok. I like Ignatz von Beeke.”
“Yeah, boooiii! That guy jams on the harpsichord!”
“String Quartet in G Presto; that is the shit, knowwhatI’msayin?”
“Hey, you know that Juliette chick that’s always hangin’ around the castle?”
“Yeah, she’s into Salieri. Beyotch.”
“She has a Francesco Benucci concert corset, but she didn’t even go to the show.”
“What a poser.”
“You should definitely ‘do’ her.”
“’Do’ her, like make scandalous eye contact in public??”
“Yeah, then don’t send your messenger boy to her estate the next day. Heh heh.”
“Man! That’s harsh, bro! I’m gonna do it. Let’s do it!”
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A slew of big movies are coming out this summer. Remakes, reboots, rehashes. Harry Potter and the…. Something That Sounds Vaguely Scary Part XXV2 – yeah, that’s a gimme.

Russell Crowe is going to be Robin Hood. It did so much for Kevin Cosner’s career.

Another Shrek, another Toy Story, another Iron Man, another Vampire thingy. Another… Tron? It takes guts to make a sequel to a huge, 28 year old flop.

The A Team is coming to the big screen. Maybe this bunch will shoot, blow stuff up and actually kill someone. It’s like the TV version trained at the Stormtrooper School of Marksmanship.

The recipe: Take some old tv show. Make a movie. Result: Box office gold. The A-Team. Sex & the City 2 (both a TV series and a sequel) There’s a Nickelodeon show unfortunately called “Avatar” that is recreated in a movie called “The Last Airbender”. I’m going to buy the rights to “Car 54 Where Are You?”, “What’s Happening?” and “Golden Girls”. They’re ripe for a big budget remake, I’m telling you.

Freddy Krueger is getting a reboot. Clash of the Titans is getting a remake. Was anyone clamoring for these? C’mon, show of hands. Really? You in the back? Oh, you were just scratching your armpit. I see.

In the legacy of Judge Dredd, Swamp Thing, Watchmen, Constantine and Hellboy; Jonas Hex is the graphic novel next coming to the silver screen. You need one of those every summer, or the sun will not shine, crops will die and worldwide famine will ensue. Watch this movie and those like it or suffer the consequences, mankind.

Given the choice between watching another Judge Dredd or Hellboy versus total annihilation, mankind selects the latter.