What the ... ?

These are the medals for the Winter Olypics in Turin next February? Have the Italians been drinking too much chianti? Or will the entire Games be played on a bitchin' Windows XP setup?

There's a hole! In the medals! Egad!

Oh, crap!

So, you remember Nick and Jessica, those great kids who just couldn't make it work? Well, get this - according to the crack staff at Entertainment Weekly, Ms. Simpson and Mr. Lachey didn't have a prenuptial agreement. Which, in Hollywood langugage, means bloodbath. Now, it's possible that the ex-Newlyweds will comport themselves with maturity if and when this thing heads into divorce court, that the dirt won't fly in the quest for the inexplicable millions the two have earned over the past few years. But that wouldn't be fun, right?

Boy, I hope Nick and Jessica aren't reading this. I sound catty.

Glad Gregory Peck Isn't Alive to See This ...

So get this - apparently somebody has and stolen Gregory Peck's star right out of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. This isn't the first time that a star's star has gone missing. In fact, it's the fourth. But in the other three cases, the markers honoring Jimmy Stewart, Kirk Douglas and Gene Autry had been temporarily removed during construction when they went poof. Here, someone seems to have taken a cement saw and ripped Greg's honor right out of the sidewalk. (Methinks someone may be have seen "Amazing Grace and Chuck" about five too many times here.)

The amazing thing is that no one seems to know exactly when the crime took place. The best the police can come up with is that the star was stolen between Nov. 17 and Nov. 22. Now, I don't know how many of you have been to Hollywood Boulevard, but it's hardly what's known as a quiet, unpopulated nook. It's filled with a myriad of tourist, kooks and, er, working ladies pretty much 24/7. And as crazy as a lot of them may be, surely somone would have noticed someone performing surgery on the pavement.

Well, here's hoping that the culprit is nabbed and that Peck's star is soon back where it belongs. And as for the thief - well, he may need an attorney as good as Atticus Finch to get out of this one.

What movie am I?

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Courtesy of my pal Beth. Go to her site (bookmarked below) to see which film she is.

Helping the kids out ... but ...

There is a plan afoot to supply the world's schoolkids, particularly those of limited means, with cheap laptop computers that will assist them in the classroom and the library. The models will cost less than $100 and have open-source operating software, along with wireless Internet access and a hand crank to generate electricity - and because kids love to twist and pull things, which is a completely different issue.

All well and good. But there was one line in the AP story about the comptuers that caught my cynical little eye:

"The devices will be lime green in color, with a yellow hand crank, to make them appealing to children and to fend off potential thieves -- people would know by the color that the laptop is meant for a kid."

Yeah, 'cause thieves have ethics. Isn't it about time for those annual stories about some yahoo cleaning out a cache of Christmas toys intended for a sad group of orphans withi no arms or something? Then again, every time one of those stories makes the news, the public responds with even better toys for the unfortunate tots. Which have made me wonder how many of thoe burglaries are inside jobs. Such thoughts may be why I may not be going straight to heaven.

If they said that thieves would be less likely to steal the computers because they were butt-ugly - now that reason, I may buy.

Denier (and dumbass?)

BBC NEWS | Europe | Austria holds 'Holocaust denier': "UK revisionist historian David Irving has been arrested in Austria under laws against denying the Holocaust.

Mr Irving was detained after a routine check on a motorway last Friday by police acting on a 1989 arrest warrant issued by a Vienna court, police said.

He told a libel hearing in London in 2000 that the Nazi gas chambers had never existed - that they were 'completely fictitious'.

He lost the case and the judge branded him 'an active Holocaust denier'.

Mr Irving was arrested in the southern province of Styria.

The historian was apparently on his way to address a students' club in Vienna when he was stopped."

OK, first thing's first - if it's well known that denying the Holocaust is a crime in Austria, and you're one of the world's most notorious Holocaust deniers, you think it's a good idea to go to Austria for a publicized visit? I know there's such a thing as making a point, but geez ...

Actually, I'm kind of torn about this story. Part of me is distressed that a person can be arrested merely for the words that he says. I'm one of those crazy black people who think that the Klan should be allowed to march anywhere they want - 'cause the more people who realize how nuts they are, the better. And there are reasons for somone to deny the Holocaust actually happened. Like they didn't witness the events directly. Or don't have any relatives who died during it. Or are complete and utter morons with cat poop for brains.

Caught red-handed - and red-nosed

Click on the title of this posting to read the culmination of the story of the escaped Texas death-row inmate and how he was caught - blotto in front of a liquor store in Shreveport, Louisiana. Now, I'm opposed to the death penalty for several reasons, moral and logical - but, if you're going to go through the efort of escaping from Death Row - particularly Texas Death Row - ye cats, do something with it. Don't just get pie-faced in a parking lot. Idiot.

This is only a test

My friend Beth is having trouble posting to her blog (which is bookmarked below), so she asked me to try to post something to mine to see if this is a system-wide problem or just her. ;)

So here I go.

The thing is, I have nothing to say at this particular moment, an occupational hazard of having jost awakened on a beautiful Saturday morning. So I'm going to make something up. Please don't read anything into the following statement. I don't need the letter(s).

Here I go:

Bunnies are evil!

Again, please disregard the above declaration. I'm sure the vast majority of bunnies are soft, cuddly and law-abiding citizens of the animal-American community. In fact, I had a cousin who was married to a bunny, and it went fine until the bunny died of an overdose of carrots and rum.

Too much information? Sorry.

Understatement

I think we all appreciate the efforts pharmaceutical companies make to warn us, during their spiffy commercials, of all the different ways their wonder drugs could kill or maim us. OK, maybe we just make fun of the way the drug companies warn us about how that medicine that will lower our cholesterol may cause our livers to explode - or how the new stuff that seals up leaky bladders could cause our livers to explode. (Come to think of it, how come all of the drugs could affect livers adversely? I take that seriously.)

Nevertheless, occasionally one of these commercials crosses a line, so to speak. I take you to a spot I saw tonight on Advair, an asthma drug that has been out for some time, though this is the first time I noticed this little chestnut:

"... Rare, but serious asthma-related fatalities occurred in a study with Serevent, one of the components of Advair ..."

Gee, that sounds pretty nasty compared to those NON-SERIOUS asthma-related fatalities. :)

And now for something completely different!

Porn versions of popular TV shows!

"Fill-more Girls"
"CSXXX: Crime Scene Fornication"
"The Wet Wing"
"Lust"
"The Sopornos" (wait, I think that's already been used by an actual movie"
"Desperately Horny Housewives"
"69th Heaven"
"Everybody F***s Raymond"
"Holding Hands in the City" (reverse psychology)
"Boned"
"The Orifice"
"Stacked" (oh, that's the name of an actual sitcom starring Pamela Anderson)