Monday, July 31, 2006

Oh dear.


Lindsay's Mom Strikes Back
By Sarah Hall
35 Minutes Ago

After her daughter received a scathing letter regarding her professionalism from the producer of her upcoming film, Dina Lohan struck back, calling the letter "way out of line."

In his missive, which was made public by the Smoking Gun Website, Morgan Creek Productions CEO James G. Robinson accused the younger Lohan of acting like a "spoiled child," blaming her various tardy arrivals and absences from the set of the upcoming picture Georgia Rule on her "ongoing all night heavy partying."

But Dina Lohan denounced Robinson's letter as "ridiculous."

"Maybe he has personal issues with whomever and it came out with my child," she told Access Hollywood in an interview scheduled to air Monday. "I don't know him. I can't judge him. I don't think it was a smart thing to do to a young girl."

The elder Lohan acknowledged that her daughter had been late to the set on occasion and admitted that production once had to be rescheduled to accommodate her lateness.

But she defended the 20-year-old actress' most recent absence from the set, which occurred after Lohan was treated at an area hospital for what her publicist described as a case of heat exhaustion.

"Lindsay was in 105 [degree weather] saying, 'Mommy, I feel sick; like I am going to faint.' She took herself to the hospital," Dina Lohan said. "She has asthma and in extreme cold or heat you can't breathe."

After receiving Robinson's letter last week, Lohan was back on the set the following day without incident, the film exec told the Hollywood Reporter.

"I'm just trying to get the movie made," Robinson said. "I did what I felt I needed to do on behalf of the movie and on behalf of her, too. I wanted to set some limits."

His letter warned that the film's producers would not "accept bogus excuses" for Lohan's behavior and would pursue "full monetary damages" against the actress if she failed to honor her commitment to the film.

"It was not a nasty letter. It was, 'Come on be a professional,'" Robinson said of his communication with the Mean Girls star. "We're halfway through with six weeks to go. There's no turning back. I wrote the letter; it was from me, not some damn attorney. She showed up. That's all I cared about."

It's not the first time Robinson has engaged in public battle with the star of one of his films. He previously scuffled with Sharon Stone over her refusal to appear nude in 1996's Diabolique.

But despite his harsh words in his letter to Lohan, Robinson said he had no personal problems with the actress

"I've never had a minute's trouble with her. She's every inch a lady," he added. "I felt I needed to remind her of her obligations to show up."

As for Dina Lohan, she feels that her daughter's hard work on the film will shine through in the end.

"She will win an Academy Award for this picture," the elder Lohan told Access Hollywood.













Now, I wasn't going to bring up Lindsay Lohan on this blog. But holy cow she was just the cutiest little thing in The Parent Trap. I own it and she was a terrifically talented little girl. Most recently I saw her in a prairie Home Companion- where she was not believable in any way.

Not to be an asshole but I wanted to put her mother's above comment on my blog to remind me to watch this movie and decide if, in addition to: not understanding asthma, not controlling her underage alcoholic child, not preventing her from sleeping with some of the world's most useless ass-clowns, being a moneygrubbing child user, and being utterly unaware of how young she doesn't look, she is also absolutely delusional about the level of her daughter's talent.
I won't bother throwing a picture of Lindsay onto my blog, if you need to see the Trailer Pudd'nthat she has become you can just check out
wwtdd.

Thursday, July 27, 2006

2 pm Snack Time Reminiscences

Today as I consume my 2 pm snack of yogurt I'm reminded of yogurts of the past. My friend Julie sent me home with a black bear hamster a few summers ago and I loved him. He never bit or peed on anyone and he was just a good little guy to cuddle. He got very ill at the end, and I was hand feeding him yogurt on his own little spoon to keep him going. He walked on a leash. He bit my ex's nipple. He was such a good friend.
Of course this is in contrast with my first hamster, Shnooky Slush-Bucket who hated everyone, constantly escaped, bit me, peed everywhere and lived- in spite of eating a fair amount of dishwasher detergent, aquarium sealant, and chewing through several cupboards- for like 4 years. Apparently his evil immortality did not extend as far as anti-digestive powers. Kit Edward Kat enjoyed a hearty brunch one Sunday, lucky little bastard. We buried what remained of Shnooky's remains in one of those cookie boxes for those cookies that were vanilla on one side and chocolate on the other (which I used to call Daddy Cookies) somewhere outside of Vegas.
I had another hamster as well, who tragically passed away of testicular cancer. It was very sad and also anatomically hilarious. I tipped the entire contents his bed-pod into a Puma box and wrapped it in an Abercrombie and Fitch bag and left him next to the clogged garbage chute. He was an ok hamster, he bit me twice, but he peed on Steve.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Spot the horrific detail below!

At swinging convention, sex is on everyone's mind
By Adam Tanner
Mon Jul 24, 8:37 AM ET

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Vera Rhodes has come a long way from her conservative upbringing in Pennsylvania's Amish community.

There she was a virgin until she married at age 30. Now, she is an enthusiastic 54-year-old member of the millions-strong "swinging" community who speaks openly of her encounters with multiple sexual partners.

"Last night it was really special," said Rhodes, who is divorced and makes a living giving massages in the Midwestern state of Iowa. "There was a couple from Mexico, a couple from Virginia and a couple from Ireland, from Australia."

"I like to participate in life as much as possible," she said with a broad smile.

Rhodes was among some 3,000 people gathered Saturday at the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas for the annual Lifestyles conference, a five-day, $700-per-couple event that offers a mix of seminars, socializing and sex.

Early Saturday, Rhodes was back for more, joining the action in a suite where more than a dozen couples were having sex.

The conference organizer, Robert McGinley, 72, president of The Lifestyles Organization, estimates that there are 3 million swingers in the United States alone. He founded his group in 1969 and began holding the annual conferences in the 1970s.

He said his firm brings in millions of dollars in annual sales from organizing tours to swinger-friendly resorts, Internet sites and from conferences. The Las Vegas event is the largest annual U.S. swinging event, he said.

"The lifestyles community is rapidly expanding," he said. "It's an expanding economic powerhouse."

MOSTLY MIDDLE-AGED

The crowd at the Stardust appeared mostly middle-aged and middle-class. And many were nowhere near as active as Rhodes. Organizers estimated that perhaps 40 percent of the couples were attending their first conference.

"I'm still thinking about it; we've been monogamous for 26 years," said one middle-aged newcomer from Palm Springs, California, who said she was raised a Roman Catholic.

At one seminar, several women were overcome as the presenter demonstrated a sexual device -- one passed out in the packed room.

For all their enthusiasm, few of the swingers tell family and friends about their hobby.

"Socially, we're pariahs," said Drew Alexander, 40, who attended with this wife Tina, 38. "We're behaving in a way that's completely against the ingrained Catholic values."

Another couple did not want their names printed but were far from shy. They made love early Saturday in the hospitality suites where couples wandered from room to room to watch the action at close range. They emerged from their experience beaming, saying seeing others sparked more passion.

One attendee who stayed completely on the sidelines was the man behind the event.

"I've never been a big swinger, that's not the point," McGinley said. "What I would like to do is bring a new understanding of sexuality in our lives and our relationships."

Well, that’s four too many legs right there.

You may call me Quiana, Spider Toucher. That’s right, bitches. I totally touched a spider. Cathi had one on her shoulder and I swatted it off in one swift motion—ninja-style.
Now Cathi may assert that first I danced around deep breathing before darting in while squealing like a Swiss school-girl whapping blindly at her shoulder. You should not believe her. Particularly so if she tries to tell you that following the whapping I danced around in circles shaking my goose-bump covered extremities, whilst yowling “bleh bleh bleh!”
Cathi is shifty and may also be suffering from Post-traumatic Stress Syndrome, thus her recollection of the event may be screwy.

aaaaaawkwaaaaaaard

Last night Cathi called me up and asked if I wanted to walk the lake. Monica was a heat-wave refugee in my apartment and decided to come too. Just as we were starting out I noticed my ex and some chick (a girl from church I would guess) on a date. They were perched shyly and awkwardly on the bench watching the sun set. Cathi and my ex are buddies so we had to go over and say “hi”. It was definitely a first date (he was wearing basically what he wore on our first date) and he introduced me as a “coworker.” (Which is fine and dandy if one is in the habit of having sex with one’s coworkers.) Anyway, she looked exactly like me aside from a doe-eyed dewy innocence and a few inches of height.
Anyway, it was a wee bit uncomfortable and I hope for his sake he didn’t whip out the ex-card right away. In the beginning I think vagueness is a winning trait. I felt kind of bad for him- the ex-sighting on a first date is kinda crappy. Oh well. He did bring her on a repeat date of ours to the lake ACROSS THE STREET FROM MY HOUSE.

I left my Sonic Care in San Francisco

San Francisco was great. Jim and I had a lovely time wandering about, grazing like bovines, riding stone cats, and
mocking strangers. We seriously had three desserts a day including my sacred cream puffs. All in all, good times. Except that I forgot my toothbrush. I think you guys all know traumatizing that can be.






















From San Francisco I traveled to the outskirts of Sacramento where I divided myself between the family ranches. My cousin Laurie made an interesting offer that she would help establish me in the mortgage business if I wanted to move down there. She would also give me the guest suite of the house and in exchange I would 1. not be a fuck up and 2. ride their horses. If it hadn’t been you know, 108 degrees down there I might consider it. It was so hot that her light tan leather interior (of her Lexus hard-top convertible- soooooo cheeky) had to be covered with blankets after my cousin received serious burns (red swollen thighs- yay!) from sitting on it with her bare skin.
From Sacramento we traveled to the Oregon coast where I looked for beach glass (to use in jewelry making) and spied on sea lions. It was really hot so we decided to head for home and about 4 hours out of Seattle we had a deflating tire. We stopped to buy a new tire and in the 104 degree weather, my uncle crawled under the truck and spliced wires together, fixing the trailer’s running lights so that we could drive in the rapidly approaching dark. Finally we arrived in Federal Way to find that they had closed 3 lanes of traffic on I-5. Fun fun fun. Then after they opened, they closed in downtown Seattle again. Excitedly we got into the Express Lane exit lane only to have it roll to closed as we watched.
Eventually we did get home… to find that it was 75 degrees at midnight. Oh well. The trip was really fun anyway.
(pictures to come later)

24120 seconds

So when I said I had “plenty of time to take a fast train” I should have said, “plenty of time to take a train that will arrive more or less at my destination on time.”
The train trip was, as expected, beautiful and scenic. I was fascinated by the poverty, graffiti, and the beauty and power of nature. Even Tacoma was beautiful from the train. I felt detached as I watched from such a great speeds and height. If I had been in my car I would have never noticed all the interesting things, as I would have been distracted by sights that would have unnerved me. The most wonderful thing was gazing down into clear green waters and waving to children on the shore. I wish I had poetry to describe it. It was almost like being in a time machine. I could picture the same dirty faced, impovershed children waving to the train in short pants and leather soled shoes.
I thought a lot about children on the ride. In the rows ahead of me were 4 children, ages 18-8. They were somehow related, half-siblings, all from different mothers, returning from a trip to see their grandmother in Port Angeles. Many topics came up: drug use (theirs and their mothers’), sex, and a number of things that made me feel that these kids would live and die in their tiny Californian desert town and never recognize their potential, and never miss it. It was profoundly depressing. The 13 year old girl looked 19 and had already learned to manipulate men with her body. She was having sex, doing drugs, and smoking (possibly simultaneously— tho not on the train). The eldest, a boy, seemed to be protective and loving, but simultaneously angry and violent. He was a K-Fed wannabe. The other older girl was rather unremarkable. The youngest girl was making sex and pot jokes. She was forward, reckless and sexually aggressive. And she was 8. I plugged my ears with my IPOD and hoped that I could drown them out with indie music and hair rock. I couldn’t though. It was impossible. I wanted to shake them and tell them to quit fucking up their lives. I wanted to yell at them. I wanted to tell those little red-neck white-trash Von Trap Family Singers where they were going. Madame Quiana predicts the future. I see Welfare and angry children. I see Dautsons and dirt roads to a hand-me-down double-wide with satellite porn. I see Grease Monkey and 7-11 and Wal-Mart.
But I didn’t say anything, because I’m a coward.
I met a bunch of very nice people on the train. An elderly couple traveling to California from their home in Minnesota to visit their grown son. A retired CPS worker who teared up overhearing the conversations ahead of us. A sarcastic Japanese exchange student with progressive political views and a penchant for sudoku.
I had plenty of time to make friends what with the train running over six and a half hours late. I won’t bore you with the lousy unfriendly service, rude conductors, and other similar details. To be succinct, the only way I would ride a long distance on Amtrak is if I was retired and could afford a sleeper.
I’m kind of sad I took the train because it wasted my first day in San Francisco, but I had an experience on the train that could never have been replicated in a plane.

Don't be too Hasty

So I may have just said we should burn Detroit to the ground and let nature reclaim it... but I suppose I can use God's standard.

Homeless man finds best reward is honesty

Updated: 6:45 a.m. PT July 25, 2006
DETROIT - A homeless man who returned $21,000 worth of saving bonds he found in a trash bin is finding out how much honesty can pay off.

Charles Moore, 59, had been searching for returnable bottles last week when he came across the 31 U.S. savings bonds. He turned them in to a homeless shelter, where a staff member tracked down the family of the man who had owned them.

For his good deed, the bond owner’s son gave Moore $100, but residents around Michigan and in other states decided his action merited a more generous reward.

So far, Moore has received over $4,000.

One man sent him eight trash bags full of returnable bottles and a bowl of coins. Three others gave a combined $2,500, and two businessmen from Troy donated $1,200, a shopping spree and a lead on a job.

“I was thankful for it,” said Moore, who had lost his roofing job in Ohio and moved back to Michigan but couldn’t find work.

Moore said he plans to use the money to find an apartment.

David C. Smith, of Albuquerque, N.M., gave Moore $1,000. Smith said he and his fiancĂ©e wouldn’t have thought twice about what to do if the bonds had belonged to them.

“We would have given him the whole amount, period,” Smith said. “No questions asked.”

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Plenty of time to take a fast train.

This will be my last blog entry before my super-exciting train excursion.
Tomorrow morning I will catch the Coast Starlight. No planes for me. We're talking panoramic views, no turbulence, no taking of my shoes and being searched, espresso, dining car, cushy seats, lounge, no swollen feet, room to move. Ye-ah.















I will ride the Starlight to Sacramento, where I will hop a commuter train to San Francisco.
This is a train trip I have been looking forward to for some time. My family has been a rail family for quite some time. I've taken many short trips up and down the East coast, but this will be my first trip of any distance. Hopefully the first of many.















I am visiting my friend Jim in San Francisco for two days, then I will move on to Sacramento to visit relatives on their ranch. Yeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
My uncle and cousins who are a long road trip will be meeting up with me there and we plan to visit the Trees of Mystery and Crater Lake on our way home in the C.O.W.
I will return to Seattle on the 23rd and if I can remember to actually take pictures I will post them when I return.
Oh and pencil in my birthday party for the first weekend in August. I am taking party suggestions.

Muppet News

Brian Henson on new Dark Crystal and Fraggle Rock films

Henson reveals that "The Power of the Dark Crystal" is on schedule while work continues on the development of a Fraggle Rock theatrical film

Courtesy of Now Playing Magazine
May 3, 2006

Henson Company co-CEO Brian Henson got on the phone with Now Playing recently to promote the DVD release of the first two seasons of the animatronic sitcom Dinosaurs. And it didn’t take long for him to begin spilling secrets about his upcoming projects. First up is the “Battleground” episode of Stephen King’s Nightmares and Dreamscapes for TNT.

A Henson doing Stephen King? What gives? “Well, I’ve always wanted to do something not for kids and I basically got to really exercise that on Farscape,” Henson says. “So Farscape was my big adult thing that I did and I did that for a lot of years. In continuing along that line, I did this ‘Battleground’ for Nightmares and Dreamscapes and I think I will do more drama/science fiction in the sort of X-Files vein as well as quite likely doing some more science fiction. I’m also enjoying some adult comedy. I think I would likely do some cool puppet pieces that are puppets but doing adult material.”

But don’t look for any evil puppets in “Battleground.” “There are characters [but] they’re not really puppets. They’re CG characters and costumes. It’s basically about a guy who gets hunted down in his apartment by a box of toy soldiers.”

In even bigger news for children of the 1980s, the Henson Company is doing a feature length Fraggle Rock movie. “I think we announced that we’re trying to develop a Fraggle Rock movie a little bit earlier than we’re doing it. Yes, we’re writing a Fraggle Rock movie and trying to pull it together.”

It’s been so long that they may have to reintroduce the origin story of the Fraggles, but devotees need not worry about a cheap remake. “I think it was more realizing the Fraggles in a slightly different environment. It was to do something that sort of stands next to Fraggle Rock rather than [is] a continuation of [it].”

You’ll see all your favorite Fraggles, and you won’t even be able to tell that the original puppets have been lost to mothballs. “Well, we have to rebuild them because they’re old, but it would be with a lot of those characters, definitely.”

On the front burner for Henson is a sequel to the cult classic The Dark Crystal. “We are trying to pull the business pieces together on a Dark Crystal sequel. That one’s pretty far along. It’s got a good, strong script, a great vision for how to do it and we’re just trying to [put it together].”

Much of the talent involved with the original Dark Crystal has left the Henson Company, so recreating that world will take more than just rebuilding the puppets. “For Dark Crystal, almost none of the voices were actually the puppeteers, so they were mostly voice artists. Where characters need to have the same voice we would likely try to find those voice artists or look for other voice artists.”

If Dark Crystal 2 happens, the obvious follow-up to Labyrinth would not be far behind. But Henson’s not thinking of an outright sequel for that world. “Actually, we’re talking about doing something different with Labyrinth but I can’t really talk about it. So we’re not really working on a sequel for Labyrinth right now, but Dark Crystal we are.”

our assets are frozen

So for the past three days the air conditioner at work has been stuck on high. It was 60 degrees yesterday. Hoodies, and scarves were abounding. Maintenance said it's broken and it can't be turned off. Last night I sent a scathing email to the head of maintenance who is on vacation in Vancouver.
Today I come in and the temperature is normal. I call down to maintenance (a different building) and they admit that only one of them knows how to turn it off and he was on vacation. So, watch out for this out of the box thinking, they called the manufacturer. Jump back!

Kermit: If you please Mr. Scrooge, it's gotten colder and the bookkeeping staff would like an extra shovel full of coal for the fire.

Rat: All of our pens have turned to inkcicles.

Movie Roundup

I saw a ton of movies over the last two weeks and I thought I should share some thoughts:

























Superman
Good. A well made movie, much better than X3 in every sense. It had interesting writing, great acting, and excellent special effects. It wasn't that exciting, but for the love of God, it is Superman. Archie and Jughead has more suspenseful moments.




















Pirates of the Caribbean (Part Deux)
Good. Exactly as expected: more of the same. If Orlando Bloom could be any more boring and uninteresting both in his acting and in his character, there would be a sure fire cure for insomnia. The effects were amazing, but the plot drug on a bit. I also prefer movies that, you know, end. 2.5 hours was a bit long. And they're going to get another 2.5 hours and 10$ out of me next July. But it's a movie about pirates, so who am I kidding. See you next year, Mr. Depp.




















Cars
By far the best movie I saw in the theater this weekend. It was very cute, heartwarming, fresh, and it had a great message. I just thought it was awesome.




















Prairie Home Companion
WTF? I NEVER use internet slang, but sweet zombie Jesus, it was soooo bad. I actually listen to the NPR program and I still found this movie boring, derivative, confusing, and senseless. I like my movies to have plots. You see most movies go intro, problem, struggle, solution, wrap up. This movie was like intro intro intro, confusing plot device, more intro, clichĂ©, random violence, intro intro, uninteresting and nonsensical non-conclusion. The only way this movie could have been interesting would be if Garrison Keillor would have had a chainsaw attached to his hand and zombies had eaten off Lindsay Lohan’s face. (Lohan, who incidentally threw away her only amusing lines. Oh Lindsay, you were such a good little actress in Parent Trap- has the Syph finally reached your brain?)
Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly stole the show. If the entire movie had been Dusty and Lefty I would have left with a smile. What a waste of good actors and my time.























Road to Perdition
The best movie I saw this weekend. Seriously wonderful. Rent it. Save your self 6 bucks and stay home. Wonderful acting, fascinating story, it had a plot, it had an ending, it was well filmed, it was interesting and suspenseful and it was just kind of compelling.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

pent up emotions

All these crazy-ass pent up emotions were released when I was sent the following link to Serentiy as performed by sock puppets.





















Damn you Joss Whedon.

Monday, July 10, 2006

I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!

All over the news, the latest case of soldier 'misconduct' in Iraq is stuck on whether the girl was 14 or 15 or older.

I don't care how old she was when was raped and murdered by our soldiers in Iraq. If she was 12 or 90, I don't care. I don't.

These are our soldiers. Our sons, our cousins, our neighbors.
And they are also our employees. We pay them. And they rape on our dime. We are paying them to protect Iraq. To engender it with the values of our nation. We paid them to protect that woman and they raped her. And God knows how many women they raped. How many civilians were killed to punish Iraq, not even killed because the soldiers believed they might be insurgents. Our men, our soldiers. Our rapists, our murderers. And worst of all, our cowards who knew what these soldiers had done and didn't step forward.

There is a macho stench in America's military. Archaic and wrong beliefs on women and homosexuals that are encouraged and considered traditional. This isn't a few bad seeds. This is an entire environment where we are taking a bunch of mostly uneducated 17 year old boys and encouraging their most base and immature instincts. I'm sick of "boys will be boys." I'm sick of the whole thing. And I am damn tired of paying for it.

Oh and you know what? I have no recourse. I paid these men and I have no say. There is so little I can do, but you know what I'm doing right now? I'm writing the President. I'm writing my senators and congressman. I'm writing to the Secretary of Defense. I'm writing them because I want my say.

And I say: Give these men a fair trial and when they are judged guilty, put these soldiers in an Iraqi prison and throw away the key. Strip them of their rank, their military benefits, and their citizenship. They don't deserve to be called American.

I am deeply deeply ashamed.

Yes, I'm a geek, but isn't this kinda neat?

La. garden yields yard-long ... cuculoupe?
Sun Jul 9, 5:50 AM ET











HOUMA, La. - They're a yard long and a good few inches across. The skin is waxy, sort of like a cucumber, but yellow and ridged like a canteloupe. A half dozen of them grew between the cucumbers and cantaloupes in a Houma home garden.

"We call it a cuculoupe," Karen Dusenbery said.

As good a name as any.

"Science is strange sometimes," LSU AgCenter agent Barton Joffrion said after examining the whatsits.

"You see crosses like that. What happens is they planted them close in proximity, and they are in the same family," said Joffrion. "But it's not that common."

Both are members of the Cucurbit family, which includes pumpkins and gourds as well as melons and cucumbers.

Cucumbers and cantaloupes are closely related enough to swap genes, Joffrion said. He'd never seen anything like the Dusenberys' whatever.

"In the first generation, they'll cross and you'll get an unusual fruit," Joffrion said.

The firm flesh inside is yellow and somewhat sweet but has a flavor more like cucumber than cantaloupe, Tim Dusenbery said.

The Dusenberys said they are saving the seeds and hope to get more next year.

However, Joffrion said a crossbred plant usually reverts back to one of its original forms in subsequent generations.

"It'll be interesting to see what it does revert to," Joffrion said.

Shhhh, don't be nervous











Jonathan Frakes is in Castlevania, to be released in 2007.













Normally I would be worried that Paul (AVP) Anderson is writing and directing this, but since #1 is here to protect me I'll throw caution to the wind and admit that come 2007 Steve and I will be waiting eagerly for the moment we can enter the darkened theater to watch 20 minutes of commercials that we paid ten bucks for.

Friday, July 07, 2006

George Lucas just can't leave well enough alone.

Don't get me started on George Lucas and his revisions of Star Wars, but, if you do want to get me started this link will give you all the material you need to keep me cussing for hours.

EX.

Original














DVD:











You know the Wizard of Oz is sooo dated. Let's take the lollipop Guild guys, CGI them to be black and have them rap the Guild welcome.
Also golden retrievers are much more popular, instead of Toto, let's CGI in "Duke." Maybe he should talk... let's get a test audience in.
While we're at it, let's see about Gone with the Wind. Let's make all the slaves white paid servants. There, now isn't that better?

You know if Lucas was going to do a bunch of changes between release and DVD, he should have refilmed episodes 1-3. Or at least deleted JarJar Binks.

Incidentally, spell check suggests "jerk" as a correction for JarJar.

Oh Japan- we really must stop meeting like this.

Japanese TV Ahoy!!!

Linkage for all

New links to your right. Check them out.
Judge me if you will.

Poor Craig.

Craigslist is being sued by civil rights groups for not screening adds for fair housing practices.
If I am looking for a roommate- not a tenant, but someone who is sharing my personal space- I want to be able to say “no kids” or “fat girls filled with anger and spite” or whatever. Furthermore if an asshole doesn’t want to share his space with a white guy or a black guy, or a gay guy, or a woman—I think he should be able to say “white, straight, boring roommate wanted.”
I don’t think a complex should be able to be gay-free, but individual assholes sharing space, should be allowed to look for other assholes. That way us regular folks can steer clear.
Furthermore I am tired of the grasping hands of the government continually trying to get its sticky fingers all over the internet. This is almost as bad as when private business was getting their cheeto fingers all over which businesses qualify for high speed internet.

Oh, and in other Tech News:
Cingular was ripping off the former AT&T customers by allowing their reception to degrade and using price influences and improper contracting to cause them to sign new contracts with Cingular. I know if those assholes had done that to me, they would be getting a little call and I would be getting a little out of my contract for free and getting a new swanky phone from T-Mobile or Verizon.
I’m just saying, Steve.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Reunited, and it feels SO good.






















My fascination with The Coreys began with the movie The Lost Boys. Sweet sweet The Coreys. I've always been sad about the fate of The Coreys. Well, it appears that things are looking up for The Coreys:

Two Coreys Together Again


picture












by Joal Ryan (E!)
Jun 21, 2006, 12:40 PM PT

Call it a Dream a Little Dream come true for fans of 1980s teen cinema. Or connoisseurs of 21st century celebrity curios.

Corey Feldman and Corey Haim, who in their prime Tiger Beat years costarred in three movies together, are being reunited for a proposed comedy series, Daily Variety reported Wednesday.

Although Feldman and Haim are best known collectively as "The Two Coreys," their new TV venture simply would be called The Coreys.

The show doesn't yet have a network home. The Variety article seemed designed to drum up interest in such a home being found--it noted that producers, the same people behind ABC's Wife Swap and the WB's Survival of the Richest, will begin peddling The Coreys on Thursday.

Speaking to Variety, RDF USA executive Greg Goldman teased that Feldman and Haim possess a chemistry that "just pops off the screen."

The Coreys would find the Coreys playing fictionalized versions of themselves, presumably because it would be funnier and less sad that way. Feldman would play Corey Feldman, married father of one son; Haim would play Corey Haim, single man. While both play those roles in real life, too, the TV show would ratchet up the comedy in the situation by having Haim, as Variety put it, "[shake] life up for the Feldmans."

Feldman and Haim, both 34, last teamed up, per IMDb.com, for two recent episodes of the Cartoon Network series, Robot Chicken. They also both appeared in the cameo-laden 2003 David Spade film, Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star.

A feathered-hair generation ago, Feldman and Haim earned their "Two Coreys" title in The Lost Boys, License to Drive and Dream a Little Dream. Later, and to lesser acclaim, they costarred in Busted (directed by Feldman), Blown Away, National Lampoon's Last Resort and Dream a Little Dream 2. Not one of those films, all made in the 1990s, were released in theaters.
While both Feldman and Haim have struggled to recapture the careers they had in the 1980s, Haim has just plain struggled, with drugs, with finances, with eBay regulations (in 2001, the site pulled an auction by the actor in which he was selling off one of his molars).

Last March, London's Daily Star quoted a "close pal" of Haim as saying the former idol was "clean and sober and ready to put his life in perspective." As such, the paper said, Haim was planning to write a tell-all about an affair he had with U.K. tab magnet Victoria Beckham during her Posh Spice/Spice Girls phase.




















Feldman, meanwhile, has dabbled in music, renounced childhood friend Michael Jackson, and amassed more than 100 IMDb.com TV and film credits, many of them recent. Often, he appears as himself (see: The Surreal Life); at least once, he appeared as Store Clerk (see: Serial Killing 4 Dummys).

You reap what you sow.

Japan is all ticked about North Korea's missile testing, not because of their proximity, but I would venture to say because they are worried about getting their comeuppance. Perhaps instead of visiting the Yasukuni shrine to dead soldiers (including convicted war criminals), the PM should be apologizing for the wide scale murder, rape etc. of the civilian populations of the countries it invaded a mere 50 years ago. I'm just saying.

Once a pansy, always a pansy.




















One night Steve and I decided to revisit Gremlins. I remember loving it while simultaneously being terrified of it. My entire adult life I've believed that I was just kind of a candy ass, fraidy cat kinda kid. My only memory of the actual movie was a lit up fountain that was absolutely terrifying. I saw Gremlins as a very small child, and I directly remember being huddled in a sleeping bag next to my cousin who was similarly huddled. We may have been whimpering. God knows where our mothers were because that movie is seriously THE SCARIEST MOVIE I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE.












Oh my sweet Lord, I was still huddled in a ball, twenty years later, watching it with the lights on. I kept yelling "Pick the sword you ass clown" and "Damn it, Corey Feldman, you've ruined everything!"

Afterwards I got out to my car and, I am ashamed to say, I checked my back seat. Twice.

Don't get me wrong, Gizmo is mighty cute (strangely enough he is voiced by Howie Mandel), but that movie is really dark.














The whole time I was squealing about how cute Gizmo was I couldn't help but think of the green, apparently gelatinous Gremlins being oh say chopped up in a food processor.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

1026.87 miles

Between me and San Luis Obispo...
darn.

Have a happy birthday America, try not to suck, ok?

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Well I've got some bad news and some bad news...

Which do you want to hear first?
More fun with the Axis of Evil
God's chosen people prepare to smite
Iran procrastinates
All is not well in Pakistan
Gas prices on the rise
Ken Lay passed away- will likely never repay the money he owes the government/the folks he ruthlessly swindled.
Rush Limbaugh didn't jack the Viagra
Italy managed some goals between the falling over and pretending to be injured.

Grumble snort.