A case for using more toilet paper

This week Pop Singer Sheryl Crowe proposed: "I think we are an industrious-enough people that we can make it work with only one square per restroom visit."

But, she adds on her website: "Except, of course, for those pesky occasions where two or three could be required." (Full article)

Sheryl, you ignorant slut…

IF (remember I start these things with big if's) Global warming is caused by carbon being released into the atmosphere and carbon is offset by the planting of trees and toilet paper comes from trees then the right thing to do is use MORE toilet paper.

If you use more toilet paper then the demand goes up. If the demand goes up the cost of supply goes up, if the cost of supply goes up it then becomes more profitable for tree farmers to increase their tree production which means more trees get planted.

The free market will always find a way to supply for what is demanded.

If you want to save the dolphins we need to make burgers out of them.

There are no cows, chickens, pigs or any other animal you might find slaughtered and sliced for sale at your local grocery store on the endangered species list. The reason being is that the free market has ensured their survival because they are popular food items.

With no real purpose to the dolphin, there are no economic forces keeping it alive.

If dolphin burgers ever caught on, then there would be gigantic sea farms built because raising dolphins for meat would be a profitable business. With dolphins as a delicacy they would join cows, chickens, pigs and other animals raised for the slaughter, and consequently abundant in numbers.

(Special thanks to Dustin for inspiring much of this through our daily email correspondences)

In The News Quickie

The Adventures of Andy Presents:
IN THE NEWS

Baldwin calls daughter a 'pig' in phone outburst
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4035798a1860.html

Alec Baldwin called his 11-year-old daughter a "rude, thoughtless little pig"
when she failed to answer the phone to him.

Honestly I assume anyone with the last name of Baldwin is a "rude, thoughtless little pig"

---

Singer proposes toilet paper limits
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21606753-2,00.html

SINGER Sheryl Crowe has proposed a unique way in which to beat global warming
- limit the use of toilet paper.

"I propose a limitation be put on how many squares of toilet paper can be
used in any one sitting."

Crowe had no comments on weather or not she will be buying toilet paper offsets. Also in the works: Banning the Burrito.

---

That's the news, I hope it was as good for you as it was for me!

Drive: Fox puts the petal to the metal

Fox’s new action thriller series Drive is the story of a race. This race has a thirty-two million dollar prize and for at least one man, the chance to reunite with his missing wife.

The Fox Network does two things well, action and cartoons. While 24 re-defined action television, Drive seems to be the next logical step forward after Prison Break. This series looks like once again Fox is will deliver a high-octane (pun intended) thrill ride (another pun) with intricate story driven character development.

The most important part of a series premier is the segment before the first commercial break. Clocking in at roughly 18 minutes we are bombarded with information about the series plot and three driver back stories.

First there is Alex Tully (Nathan Fillion) whose wife has mysteriously disappeared one week ago in Nebraska. Next we get the motivation for Wendy Patrakas (Melanie Lynskey). She just had a baby and immediately joins this road race from Ohio. Finally we are introduced to Winston Salazar (Kevin Alejandro) on the day he is released from prison in Maryland.

These three have absolutely nothing in common save that on this particular day they all received a mysterious black cell phone. When it rings the voice on the other end gives each of them instructions to drive to Key West.

This takes care of the first eight minutes of the series. As we were introduced to three characters, the opening credits list no less than ten drivers are credited.

While the show will get it’s pacing comparisons to 24, the series is shaping up to be more like Lost. An ensemble cast drawn together through one common twist of fate. Like Lost each character not have a flashback to their life before the race, but in an unintended comment on society, they are also connected back to the world from which they came via personal cell phone (as opposed to the one provided to them for the race). Those conversations serve to shed light on the motivation for each character’s involvement with the race.

The premier episode focuses on the story of Tully the character with the most sympathetic cause: A missing wife who may or may not be at the end of the race.

While driving, Tully picks up a passenger who is another contestant. Now with multiple people in each car we have the means for conversational plot development.

On the other side of the circumstance of the show are those mysterious cell phones offering instructions. In what would otherwise be some sadistic reality show the phones serve to take the place of Phil Keoghan who introduces each week’s new challenge on The Amazing Race.

The cast, who is likely better looking than ten reality show contestants, is full of some recognizable faces and fine actors. Among the most recognizable is Nathan Fillion who has endeared audiences of nearly everything he has done. He is the classic blue-collar everyman.

Getting a chance to spread her dramatic wings is Melanie Lynskey who was most recently seen as the crazy neighbor on Two and a Half Men. Nowhere closer to resolving any romantic issues, she’s on the run from an abusive husband.

The most recognizable face on this road would be that of Dylan Baker who plays Peter Parker’s mentor and professor in the Spider-Man Movies. Here again he is an engineer who winds up in the race with his seventeen-year-old daughter.

One interesting stylistic decision made for the series is the music. Instead of promoting popular music to set the scene, the series soundtrack features highly recognizable classic rock remakes. Of course each song has a driving theme such as The Doors’ Roadhouse Blues and Golden Earring’s Radar Love.

Drive is somewhere between NASCAR, Lost and your choice of reality show. For those who will adopt the series as a favorite the fortunate thing is that this format will allow the writers to wrap up the series in a couple episodes should the show not live past the first season. On the other hand, as another serialized action/drama if you missed the first two-hour episode you’ll likely never see it until the DVD release.

I’m not really Jesus but I play him at church

For those of you not old enough to remember, or just never took a marketing class there once was a medicine commercial starring an actor from a TV medical show. The actor started out “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV…” He then leverages his credibility as an actor playing a doctor not an actual doctor to recommend some sort of medicine.

That being said, I will now be leveraging my portrayal as Jesus during my church’s Easter Week services to recommend hat you believe everything on my blog.

Yes I have now followed in the steps of Jim Caviezel, and… well I don’t know anyone else who has played Jesus. But since Jim Caviezel also played Bobby Jones, the amateur golfer who started Augusta National Golf Club and subsequently the Masters (which also wraps up Easter Sunday this year) I think that’s enough credibility for one Blog Post.

So this week I made my debut as a thespian at church. Each night between Monday and Thursday we had a narrator read scripture while actors mimed the motions of the day’s readings.

Monday I got to turn over the moneychanger’s table. Tuesday Judas betrayed me, Wednesday I washed disciple’s feet and Thursday I broke bread and did a perp walk (Yes I used the term “perp walk” when referring to the arrest of Jesus).

Now there are a few things you should remember when playing Jesus.

1. Remember to take off your digital watch. Jesus acted impatient by tapping a sundial strapped to his wrist.
2. Be sure to silence your cel phone. Nothing breaks the mood like Jesus postponing the Sermon on the Mount to take a call. Especially if his ringtone is AC/DC’s Back in Black like mine is.
3. That beard is itchy. So as soon as my final performance was over I took the clippers and a razor to my face for the first time in two weeks. I also got a haircut the next morning and I’m back to my clean-cut self. Now I know how Ben Roethlisberger (the savior of the Pittsburgh Steelers) felt when he couldn’t shave through the 2006 NFL Playoffs.

All in all it’s Easter weekend. Don’t forget to color some eggs, eat a chocolate rabbit and remember just why this is the most important weekend for Christians (and golf fans but that’s another blog post).

The Last Breakfast

It's Maunday Thursday which in the Christian calendar is traditionally when Jesus and his disciples broke bread in what is called "The Last Supper"

What is lesser known is that they also met earlier in the day for what history has forgotten: The Last Breakfast.

Peter scrambled eggs while Judas (remember he betrayed Jesus for several pieces of silver) went out and bought steaks for the eggs. No bacon at this breakfast, they were all Jewish.

Jesus, not being a morning person, didn't have much to say during breakfast, hence why it was left out of the Bible. But afterwards they all went out and played hacky sack for an hour or so.

The Hot Blonde Quota

No more than 2 hot blondes alloed on the Lost island at a time.

First there was Shannon and Claire.

Then Libby showed up and Shannon got shot.

Then Libby got shot and we got Niki, but we knew that wasn't going to work out because Juliette was on the other side of the island.

Now with Niki gone the island is back to normal.

Only 2 Hot blondes on the island at a time. It's a Lost rule!

The Adventures of Andy and the Office Refrigerator

Where I work everybody takes a week to handle all the basic chores of the office. This usually includes taking out the trash, washing the used coffee cups, which by the way has happened 3 times since Monday. We don’t have that many people in our office, we don’t even have that many coffee mugs!

One little task I took upon myself was to clean out the office fridge. It’s one of those larger model college dorm refrigerators and usually just as full of beer. One problem with this particular model is that after a while, say ten minutes or so, the freezer part starts to ice over. If you don’t keep up with scraping off of ice, say every twenty minutes or so you get a block of ice in the upper part of the device.

Having once de-iced the refrigerator once before, and this being my week to clean I took it upon myself to once again free the freezer part of the fridge from ice and release that lean cuisine meal that’s been sitting there for months from it’s icy bondage.

Phase 1: Bring in a cooler and Ice to keep all the beer and other items cold

This happened flawlessly, however all the beer was gone when I got in this morning there was one. Which means that after the one I had yesterday afternoon everyone else in the office kept drinking! Nonetheless the other refrigerated contents needed to be put on ice.

After moving everything to the cooler and adding ice, it was time to thaw the fridge. This happened nicely as it was warm and there was some heat coming off the dishwasher as explained above.

It seems over time the upper hinge on the door has worked itself loose, and today with the door ajar long enough it finally wiggled loose.

This lead to a more thorough cleaning than I had intended since I had to take the refrigerator out into the hall where I had more room to try and reattach the door.

This turned up unsuccessful as the two bolt-like objects that make up the hinge of the fridge (hey, that rimes!) are spaced such that you can’t have them attached to the main part of it and still get the door on. You can’t have them both attached to either the door or the big part and still get the door on. This lead to Bryce asking what I was doing. To which I replied just loud enough for Bob (who seems too cheap to hire a cleaning service) “Just giving myself a chance to clean under the fridge”.

But what comes next is I need to find a wrench so I can take off the bottom hinge, attach the top hinge to the main unit and then slide the door on that and finally re-attach the bottom hinge.

This is all so we have a clean place to keep our beer.

Any Negative Multiplied by Any Other Negative

Maybe I have a natural propensity for finding patterns. Maybe I just really liked the DaVinci Code. Maybe I’m trying to justify using algebra in my daily life. I’ve come up with a new theory: Any two liberals can cancel each other out.

There are any number of examples here, George Noory (wrote the novel upon which the movie “The Day After Tomorrow” was based) says that pollution will cause an ice age. Al Gore says that it causes global warming. The truth is that neither of these guys have any scientific basis for their beliefs.

In 2004 the Seirra Club was sending me mail telling me to vote democrat while at the same time the Auto Unions were trying to recruit me for the same cause. The cancellation here comes from the Seirra club wanting to put an end to fossil fuel consumption while the Auto unions make gas guzzling SUV’s. What kind of candidate did they have that was going to solve both their problems? And that brings us to our latest candidate on everybody’s favorite gameshow: Name That Secular Humanist!

Today’s candidate is trying to destroy Christianity by manipulating historical evidence to discredit thousands of year of theology.

Did you say Dan Brown? You’re close. But we’ll get to him in a moment.

Recently film director, James Cameron has announced that he found a tomb containing the bones of Jesus and his family, which included a son. The full story will be told in a documentary that will air Sunday on the Discovery channel.

However, according to all historical records (at least the ones Dan Brown chooses to accept) Jesus did not have a son, he had a daughter, and they moved to France and ate cheese and drank wine and made that country the world power it is today.

The truth is that all these people are more agenda driven than truth driven. Why would one of the biggest directors in Hollywood with credits to his name like The Terminator, The Abyss and Aliens want to produce a relatively low-budget project for the Discovery channel? Could it be his love for Science Fiction? Well here’s what I think.

Discovery Channel: James, we need someone to direct our documentary about some bones we found in Jerusalem.

James Cameron: Why would I want to do that? I made Linda Hamilton’s career… then divorced her.

DC: We could say the bones belonged to Jesus and his family. Hey look there’s even a son!

JC: Dethrone the King of Kings? Well that would make these business cards of mine that say “King of the World” slightly less illegitimate!

Aside from my farce, the secular-humanists hate Christianity mostly because it asks you to behave in a certain way. The Hollywood liberals and people that want to live that lifestyle don’t want to be held accountable and thus instead of doing the right thing, try to de-legitimatize the right thing so they don’t have to do it.

Seriously, which one sounds like more work?

WorldVoiceNews.com targets BBB

I don’t do much hard news on here. Usually I’m more along the lines of discussing Brittany shaving her head, or the 3-ring circus that the Death of Anna Nicole Smith has become. But with the cable news channels covering these stories 24/7 it’s time for someone to tell you what’s going on and how it might work.

Due to my status as a reporter for the website WorldVoiceNews.com (formerly USA Voice, but more on that) I was invited this week to take part in a conference call about a breaking news story that they wanted everyone on staff to take part in. Keep in mind I’m a movie critic, not a hard news reporter. But since the site recently and without warning changed their name, and since I haven’t heard anything about a paycheck the morbid curiosity overcame me and I dialed in.

The story: Aggressive sales practices at the Better Business Bureau.

As I was informed by a senior writer at the “Voice” on the conference call, the Better Business Bureau (BBB) has been engaging in unfair and aggressive sales practices. As it was made clear on the call the BBB is not a government entity, they are simply a private not-for-profit organization that provides a branded affirmation of other businesses. They also take complaints about businesses from upset consumers.

However where we were told the BBB uses aggressive sales techniques. The BBB requires a business to be established for one year before eligibility. At that point the business is eligible for membership in the BBB. However the writer telling us this had a case study where a business was set up with no advertisement or clients and after their one year limit the BBB called saying that people were asking about the business and they should join the BBB to enhance their reputation.

It was again made very clear several times that the BBB is NOT part of the government and has no real power to impose punishment on any offending business.

The assignment given to the reporters was this: Apply for jobs with the BBB, take their sales training and document any underhanded practices that they employ while garnering sales.

This is all good and noble and very much the spirit of watchdog journalism. But what would be the motivation of an upstart online newspaper to bring down an American establishment that has been protecting consumers for nearly 100 years?

I have only been with the paper for less than two months. I had my orientation in late December to reduce paperwork, in the form of a 2006 10-99 form, I was not “hired” until after the first of the year.

Even though they have my address I have not seen a check arrive in the mail yet. Personally this doesn’t bother me since I’ve only posted half-a-dozen articles and I probably don’t have that much of a readership. If pay is based on web hits and they have a minimum account balance before you get a check, like Google’s Add Sense I can see why they'd delay sending out checks. But there was no explanation to that effect.

I also have reports of someone else who wrote for the paper for six months without a paycheck, and my own editor friend has not seen a check in two months despite active editorial work.

Now, with compensation scarce and a vendetta against the BBB it is very easy to speculate that disgruntled reporters are reporting the paper to the BBB in hopes of getting some restitution.

This, in my opinion, would explain the recent and unannounced change of the paper’s name from USA Voice to World Voice News. By changing the name of the business it is possible to interpret this legally as a new and different business and thus if the BBB were to file a class action lawsuit the offending business is no longer in existence.

Finally a simple search of the BBB website provides some interesting information on USA Voice/World Voice News including the following statements:

The Bureau has received multiple inquiries from the public and is contacting the
firm about complaint correspondence as well. Consumers report being asked for
personal information, including Social Security numbers, in order to set up an employment link with the firm. Further contact was not provided, however, and consumers report concerns that their information may be sold and mis-used.

The Bureau has requested basic information from this company. The Bureau has not received a response. According to information that was provided by the firm, it is connected with Instant Human Resources. A separate report is available on that firm.

Read the full report here

So there you go, hard news, or hard headed people in the news business. I honestly don’t think the readership of World Voice News is enough to hurt the institution of the Better Business Bureau. Then again I Believe it was Mark Twain who once said, “Don’t get into an argument with anyone who buys ink by the barrel.”

I wonder if digital ink holds the same weight?

Getting stuck in the snow is easier than you think.

It’s snowed quite a bit here lately. Beginning Tuesday we’ve had upwards of about a foot of snow total… though between some melting and icing over it’s not quite that much, still it’s pretty white out there. The schools have been out and I even took about half a snow day because everything else was closed.

Well after a full day of doing laundry I buzz my buddy Brett to go out for a beer. He lives just down the street, basically across the parking lot of the now abandoned grocery store that’s immediately across the street from my condo. So I pick him up and we head north to our favorite watering hole for a couple beers.

The place wasn’t doing much business so we left early and headed home. This is important because I can’t blame what happened next on alcohol because I wasn’t drunk and because I had the idea before I started drinking. After dropping Brett off I decided to drive my All Wheel Drive SUV through that unplowed abandoned parking lot that’s across the street from my house.

I get about twenty feet into the icy waste when my tires started spinning and I stopped moving.

At this point I should probably inform you that I was not actually driving through snow. It was at one point snow, but then covered in freezing rain, more snow that melted slightly and refroze into ice and another couple layers of snow on top of that. Basically I’m about just inside the edge of a 100 square yard snow cone. But without the delicious cherry and blueberry syrup.

I tried reverse.

I moved a little less than six inches.

I tried forward again.

I moved even more less than six inches.

This is where I learn the difference between All Wheel Drive an Four Wheel Drive

I was stuck.

Seeing as I was less than 200 yards from home I ran home and got a shovel and started digging my tires out.

I tried reverse again. This is when I realized I needed some pushing along with digging. So I called Brett and he was nice enough to walk over from his cozy house to help me dig out.

It took about five attempts, each resulting in about four feet of progress but we finally made it.

The moral of the story: You don’t need 4 wheel drive if you’ve got friends who answer the phone when you call late.

3’s Company

No I’m not feeling nostalgia for cheesy 70’s sitcoms. But with recent love life debacles fortunately there’s the social life to pick up the slack.

So around 5:00 yesterday I get an IM from my friend Judy. I agree to pick her up around 6. So I meet Judy at her office and we pick a bar to enjoy happy hour. As it turns out Judy’s car isn’t working so well and I guess her ulterior motive is to buy me a few drinks so she can have a ride home. I’m never one to pass up free drinks, and with the 2007 premier of Lost on this night I now have something to occupy my time.

We get to the bar and order a couple drinks. Judy and I get together about once every few months. So we spent a few hours, and several rounds discussing life, work, sports, our life goals, etc..

So it’s nearing 8:00 and the free appetizers are no longer available, but I figure one more round, and I’ll pick up some KFC (it’s the closest thing to Mr. Clucks we have here in the non Lost world) and watch the recap episode before tonight’s premier.

About this time Judy’s boyfriend shows up. “hey babe,” he says as he sits down with us and gives her a quick kiss.

Obviously annoyed at this development, Judy looks uncomfortable so I continue our conversation on why there are Pittsburgh Steelers fans in every city in the country.

Nick introduces himself and starts asking me a series of questions to get me on his side. He does his best to tell Judy that he’s taking her home, but now that Nick is being bossy Judy is being contrary and orders another round for the two of us.

Now it’s nearing 9:00 and I am very glad I set the DVR because I figure we’ll settle the argument and I can pop open a can of soup and watch Lost a little late. But as the argument continues, I tried giving them their space and being neutral as possible. I think I’ve made it clear that my intentions are not to break up the unhappy couple, nor to try to sleep with either of them, I just want to get home and watch Lost!

Not too much longer goes by and Judy and I head to the other side of the bar to get away. Now she’s trying to do two things, Make Nick Jealous and try to hook me up with one of the three pretty girls sitting at the bar. Don’t get me wrong, it was great being surrounded by four beautiful women but I really just wanted to get home and watch Lost!

This goes on until around 11 when I end up buying a round of drinks for the girls and get no phone numbers in return. Oh I probably could have but I think you know how distracted I am tonight.

At some point Nick comes over and says goodbye to Judy and then puts his arm around me saying, “Get her home safe tonight, okay? Because if you don’t I’ll kill you like a dog.”

I actually think he used several other four-letter words beginning with F but with my mind on my favorite TV show and my attempt at cleaning up his grammar you got my best recollection of the event.

With Nick gone and everybody else in the bar wholly aware of what has happened tonight Judy finally cashes out and we head back to her house. I get there about a quarter-till one and drop her off. She was worried that Nick was there and from what she told me the next day he was and they broke up. But at this point I made a B-Line home for, you guessed it, Lost.

It’s just after 1 AM and I hit Play on the DVR, With no instant food in the house I have missed dinner but thanks to modern technology I have NOT missed Lost.

In The News Special Report

Anna Nicole Smith Dies at 39
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-ex-smith8feb09,1,1474380.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. -- Anna Nicole Smith, the Texas waitress who climbed into
the top echelons of wealth and sexual glamour, died in Florida today, officials
reported.

The former Playboy model and reality television star was found unresponsive
in her hotel room and was rushed to a hospital about 2 p.m. EST and was
pronounced dead.

It's just nice to know that her body and her brain have been reunited!

The Most Controvercial Superbowl ad

Sitting at home on a Saturday night with a head cold I turned on the news and caught a report about the “controversial” Super Bowl ad featuring Kevin Federline.

The ad is a continuation of Nationwide Insurance’s campaign featuring celebrities who are past their prime and the slogan “life comes at you fast”.

So the “controversy” involves K-Fed showing off his life as a rapper only to realize it’s a daydream in front of the deep fryer at a fast food restaurant. Someone with too much time on their hands says the commercial is an insult to fast food workers.

Now the easy thing to do here is saying something like “if I were a fast food worker I’d be insulted to be associated with Kevin Federline too.” But that would be too easy.

That being said, and given I have the unfortunate displeasure of knowing who Kevin Federline is, It occurred to me earlier in this Super Bowl season that I have no idea what Kevin Federline looks like, at least until tonight when I saw him on TV for the first time.

Life is coming at you fast K-Fed, so fast I’m doing my best to miss it.

Also, here’s the commercial.

Something in the air...

I make it a rule to not blog about my personal life but today I'm making an exception. It all started when i realized that Saturday was a bad date night pretty much all around. I was at a lame party, Brett was sick, Rosanna and Lonnie came home with horror stories....

It all started a few months back when I met this girl online.. I've come to believe that nothing good ever comes from stories that begin this way, but I'm too cheap to buy a girl a drink. Anyway this girl and I have somewhat of a connection. She even joked about wanting an H3 for Christmas, so I bought her the matchbox version, telling her it's a little small but gets better gas mileage.

So Saturday night I get to the party, oh it was at a bar so I had to run a tab... but considering I have spent many a Saturday night at a bar this wasn't too much of a stretch for me.

I get there and she comes up to me to greet me that was nice. We sit down and immediately she asks if I bring anyone. I told her that I invited Brett but he was sick. I started making small talk with the girls, and the guys. Not wanting to come off clingy, I start mingling with other people and had some fun conversations. I got the feeling that some people were loose associates but not really good friends. Many of them had full days and weren’t totally into being social, but I did my best being a master conversationalist.

The party broke up and I graciously said good-bye to everyone. Perfect timing as I had started getting text messages from Stefanie (not a typo, that’s how she spells her name). We agree to meet up for a drink near her house. I head back to the west side and arrive at the bar apparently just after a fight had spilled out of the front door.

Stefanie goes on to tell me how bad her date was. I bought her a couple drinks because she had to spend all her cash on dinner and the movie. It says something when you need a drink AFTER a date. After some mutual bitching we say our goodnights and head home.

The next night I head up to the Office (the bar not a place I do work) so I can tell Lonnie Happy birthday. It was Saturday but I was… well we all know where I was by now. To my surprise her sister Rosanna was working for her because she and her date for Saturday took Her out. Well Rosanna wasn’t too into the guy either… and he WAS clingy. But in the process they got Lonnie so drunk she was throwing up most of Sunday.
After some mutual bitching we say our goodnights and head home. (Cut and paste makes writing so east!)

Monday I do the gracious thing and email the girl from the party back thanking he for inviting me, telling her I had a good time… okay I did have a good time but she really wasn’t part of it.

Then I get a reply:

First of all, thank you for the car...that was really sweet and
thoughtful.

However, no I did not have a good time on
Saturday. I think I made it pretty clear to people that I didn't want
anyone to come alone because I didn't want to have to entertain anyone.
So, when 3 of my friends showed up alone, I was really pissed. It's great
that you are able to talk to people, but that annoyed me because I then felt
that you were bothering my friends. And, my cousin agreed to talk with you
for awhile so that I could get up and go talk to other people. I don't
want you to get the wrong idea about her. She's not interested in
you.

All in all, I wish the night hadn't happened. I was
incredibly uncomfortable with the entire situation. I guess it's my
fault for putting myself in that situation. You're a really nice guy, but
our personalities do not mesh well together.

I’m actually torn between telling her off and taking the higher road (so I guess I’ll just do it publicly on my blog).

The bottom line is I really don’t want anything to do with someone that would speak that way to another human being. Apparently her idea of a party is: bring someone you know, talk only to them, leave without speaking to other guests. Maybe she doesn’t get invited to many parties, but honestly, I can see why.

First reactions to the State of the Union Address

It can be said that George W. Bush is not the greatest speaker in the world but tonight you didn’t know that. The president seemed more confident and self-assured. His tone was strong and full of conviction. His words were, well, annunciated. Go figure.

Onto the substance of the speech.

The address began with complements to newly appointed Speaker Pelosi. The thought that occurred to me as he was praising the first woman speaker was, what a catfight would occur between Speaker Pelosi and President Hillary Clinton. The destruction of the country might just be worth seeing that play out!

Bush’s domestic agenda started with a plan to strengthen the already booming economy, “through enterprise not government”. The key point to me was that none of his domestic agenda called for increased spending or raising taxes. In fact his plan for providing private healthcare involves a tax cut. This is especially important to someone like me who is employed by a small business and doesn’t get the extensive health benefits a large corporation can afford.

Where he lost me was toward the end of his domestic energy plan. While I’m fine with nuclear energy and even ethanol to some extent, what I don’t get is reducing gasoline usage by 20% in ten years. Mostly because today I filled up my gas-guzzling SUV (okay it’s not that much of a guzzler but it does hold a decent amount of cargo) for a ridiculously low $1.83 per gallon. That’s the lowest gas price I can remember since well before Katrina. At these prices we can't afford to not use more gas!

The simple fact that gas prices have gone down shows that there is plenty of gas to go around. Decreasing the use of gasoline can only be done if there is an alternative that meets both our expanding economy’s need for increased fuel and that fuel works as well as gasoline. Reducing our decency on foreign energy in place of our own domestic supply would be my preferred alternative.

Onto the war. Without going into the detail of his increased troop initiative from last week, we got a laundry list of accomplishments from the democratization of Iraq. All good things, and he did lay out the danger of those things coming to an end without our forces there to protect Iraq from the preverbal wolves at the gate… every gate surrounding Iraq.

More on our enemy, by quoting Bin Ladin among other terrorists he did a good job at painting the picture of what we are facing. These men make the villains in James Bond films look like the care bears. “It is better to be dead than to be alive while the non believers share this world” is just one quote he used. And they say Ann Coulter is intolerant!

Finally the end of the speech was the part of agenda where we give away all our money to Africa because they have none.

Overall I predict a slight boost in Bush’s popularity, but it will be short-lived when the first casualties from the Iraqi troop increase start being shown on cable news. His confidence may stem from the fact that at this point popularity polls no longer matter. He is free to be himself and I think that’s who we saw tonight. For the fist time he laid out his agenda, which was not for bigger government but lower taxes and free enterprise incentives.

Where was this president for the past 6 years?

Reviews that should be posted elsewhere

Because my new side gig USA Voice.org is experienceing technical difficulties I have decided to repost the last 2 reviews that have gone unread at my trusty old blog.

Review 1: 24, season 6

24 Season 6 off to an explosive start.

Unless you have been living under a rock, the hit series 24 has been going on for five years with all of your friends, as well as certain political and sports talk show hosts telling you how great it is. Season six promises to be as good, or better than its previous seasons.

Star Kiefer Sutherland plays Jack Bauer, federal agent. Getting his orders directly from the president he sets out to quietly and covertly stop terrorists. Season six opens up with Jack being freed from twenty months in a Chinese prison. Obviously tortured and needing a Shave, Bauer is quickly sent into action as a terrorist in Los Angeles wants Jack’s life in exchange for information that could lead to the end of a series of terrorist attacks across US cities.

Jack Bauer is simply the American answer to James Bond. Rarely wearing a suit and tie, Bauer is seen yelling, chasing after bad guys and shooting to kill just a little more often. Oh, and Jack has a wife and daughter, so no affairs with sexy foreign spies.

24 offers a unique perspective on the serialized drama, with each episode happening in real time. Each one-hour episode tracks the events of that hour, with twenty-four episodes making up a season. Aiding in the storytelling is often a split-screen view showing simultaneous views of action in different settings.

Despite it’s praise from noted political figures such as Senator John McCain (R- Arizona) and conservative radio mainstay Rush Limbaugh, the show is not overtly political. Characters such as President Palmer are not given party affiliations, leaving you free to see your own political views in the character depending on their role as a protagonist or antagonist. Other shows that do promote a political agenda do so by taking an extreme side, while 24 sets up a character to be a political extremist but brings them back to a more realistic level rather quickly.

Despite its extreme praise from the right you don’t need to be a registered Republican to enjoy the show. Though heavy praise comes to this show from the political right, it is simply enjoyable as the most action-packed show on television. If you want to get into the politics of 24 the show depicts the war on terror the way we hope it won’t be. The terrorists are portrayed as Middle-Eastern militants trying to execute another 9/11 every week. Other TV shows and some movies dealing with the same subjects do their best to disassociate Islamic organizations with terrorism. 24 dares to go there and it seems to be a formula that works.

The first episode of the season is a great jumping-on point for new fans, and if you’re upset that you’ve missed the beginning of this season, fear not. Fox has released the season premier on DVD, containing the first four episodes of this season, just in time for you to catch up by Monday night.

Review 2: The Naked Trucker and T-Bone Show

Part skit comedy, part sitcom, all bad: The Naked Trucker and T-Bone Show

Tonight Comedy Central premiered The Naked Trucker and T-Bone Show. We’re eight minutes into the first episode and I’m already panning it.

Not since Ugly Betty Has a show’s title been a deterrent to viewers. But since Ugly Betty won a Golden Globe I suppose the big shots at Comedy Central decided to green light this monstrosity.
The show starts out with what appears to be two men at a diner discussing the literary value of a diner menu versus a John Steinbeck novel. One man appears to be suffering either a learning disability or severe brain damage. The other is a naked trucker who seems articulate and is reading The Grapes of Wrath. This might be funny in a Seinfield-like way if the T-Bone (the one with the severe brain damage) did not sound like his tongue was entirely too large for his mouth.

The show continues to a studio with a live audience. The duo introduces video segments through failed attempts at humor as it is obvious they did not have enough writing talent to write a sufficient plot device to link the disjointed video segments together.

One nearly high point, well as close as this show will have to one, was a guest starring appearance by Will Ferrell. Ferrell plays a hitchhiker who challenges the truck to a race in a segment called “Hitchhiker Of The Week”. Ferrell capable of funny and almost is, but T-Bone’s mush mouth and Ferrell’s rambling make me feel even more sorry for the trucker, beyond the fact that he’s naked and sitting on a leather truck seat on what appears to be a warm day.

Much like David Spade’s The Showbiz Show, Too Late with Adam Corolla, and the mortality of South Park’s Kenny, don’t expect this show to last very long.

The blog post one year in the making

A new car, new job and the Steelers won the Superbowl. 2006 was a pretty good year overall.

It all started on January 1, as every year does. The Steelers had clenched a 6th seed in the NFL playoffs, and worked their way to the big game doing the unthinkable, winning three games on the road. Sometimes not only playing the opponents but the opponent’s fans’ emotions, Refs and thin air.

And yes, I did grow a beard to match Big Ben.

Sometime in that final week of January I ventured to my local Saturn dealership to look at new vehicles. With interest rates on the rise I settled on a Black 2006 Saturn VUE. However with the Superbowl only days away I had apprehension about trading in my native Pittsburgh car, so I told the guys at the dealership that I would not drive off the lot without my brand new Pittsburgh Steelers License Plate holder attached.

They even played the Steelers fight song for me as I got in the car.

Then came the Superbowl. If you haven’t noticed I’m a bit of a fan. So much so I DVR every game, and play on a delay with the sound muted and listening to the Sirius Satellite Radio broadcast of the game featuring the Steelers announcers. Now this made watching the Superbowl interesting. Wanting to see the commercials we would switch audio feeds on my TV to hear the best part of the game, the commercials. The NFL really needs to get rid of that Superbowl bye week and put the game back in January where it belongs!

The team in Black and Gold won and I broke the dress code by wearing my Hines Ward jersey to work on Monday. A coworker asked, “If they lost would you have been unbearable today?” I said, “No, I’m more unbearable because they did win!”

In April I said goodbye to my work home of more than five years. It was time to move on and I’m glad I did. I left Cardinal Health for Xcelerate Media. It’s a small e-learning company. How small? We’re located above a Starbucks in Dublin.

It’s almost a complete 180 from corporate America. I show up in Jeans, or shorts, sandals… well whatever I’m comfortable in. The people I work with are great. And Stephen Correll has nothing on our office.

We pass the football around the big room all the developers work in. We developed a random number generator with a list of restaurants attached to the numbers just so we can decide where to go to lunch. This is negated by the fact that we go to Donato’s about three times a week.

We have a Consultant who comes into our office every so often, and is compiling a list of things we do that would get him fired at his office. I guess calling out “not it!” when the phone rings is frowned upon elsewhere.

There was one black mark on the year, and that was the passing of Grandma. She was a fighter a feisty one and stuck around longer than we expected. But she is missed. But not necessarily at 7am on my birthday when she liked to call me to remind me what day it is.

Finally at the end of the year I gave into my friend Kelly’s request to write movie reviews professionally. Yes, you heard me right, I am now officially a professional movie critic. She is an editor with the online newspaper USAvoice.org. She said that since I’m already writing reviews I should do it for them and get paid. So there may not be as many on my blog, but there will be more reviews in the paper.
Well that’s the blog post that took a year to write, well only about a half hour in reality. But you get the picture. 2007 looks to be even better, of course it would be depressing if I didn’t say that. Who wants to look forward to depressing stuff anyway?See you in the New Year!

ROCKY! ROCKY!

Invariably in a list of great sports films you will see the word “Rocky” appear at least once. Often times more often than that, and never with the Roman numeral “V” after it. Come to think of it, repeat after me: “Rocky V does not exist… Rocky V does not exist…”

Now that we have that out of the way we can move on to the final (Sly’s words) installment in the Rocky series, “Rocky Balboa”

This summer when I saw the first preview for this film my gut reaction was, “he has to loose this one.”

And that is addressed in the exposition of the film. If you’ve been living under a rock or been in US custody for being an evil dictator in the Middle East (at which point you’ve already been executed) you know that the premise for this movie is that a sports show pits Rocky Balboa against the current champion in a virtual boxing match in which Balboa wins. This garners interest in the boxing world and a fight is set up.

But even before we get into this plotline of the film, we get a lot of Rocky visiting the old neighborhood, and replaying in his mind, and ours, the classic scenes from the first two movies. On top of that, quite a bit of time at Adrian’s grave.

One of the more interesting retrospectives lands Rocky in his old neighborhood bar. This leads to the reintroduction of one of the most classic characters in the Rocky series, “Little Maria”. Just like he did when he was a nobody club fighter he offers somewhat unsolicited advice, to make her life just a little better. This time she actually takes it.

The things that make Rocky such an endearing character in American Cinema are still there: his dumb wit, his tolerance for Pauley, and his everlasting love for his late wife, Adrian.

In fact it is in this exposition that makes this film as good as all the critics say it is. The movie’s central theme is that just because someone is older doesn’t mean they’re useless. The theme is driven home by writer/director Sylvester Stallone through dialogue and visuals true to the Rocky genre. Or to sum it up as Toby Keith said, “I ain’t as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was.”

The movie is very non-Hollywood in several ways. As a function of our youth-oriented culture nobody gives Rocky a snowball’s chance against champion Mason Dixon (Antonio Tarver). But Rocky is a fighter and a fighter must fight. Even if he is “too old” in the eyes of, well, everyone.

Much like you believed a club fighter could go the distance against the champ thirty years ago, this time you believe a sixty-five-year-old man can get into a boxing ring.

Now I’ve spent a good deal praising the first two-thirds of this movie, and that brings us to the fight scene. It is the fight scene that keeps this movie from being on a par with the first two (and best two) films in the series.

From the opening bell it feels almost like the fight scene from thirty years ago. Rocky, the underdog, gets outboxed hands down in the first round. From there I’ll avoid the spoilers, but the fight could have been better.
That being said, finally the Rocky story has an ending fitting its great legacy.

A Movie For Book People

First off, credit to someone in Hollywood for finally having an original idea. After years of remakes, franchise sequels and film versions stuff we’ve seen in other mediums we finally have something that is about as original a concept as there has been in recent years.

I’m talking about “Stranger Than Fiction” the latest offering from the current golden boy Saturday Night Live Alum Will Ferrell. Now before you go on expecting another Elf or Ron Burgundy type performance I’m going to warn you upfront: Will Ferrell underplays his role. He underplays it so much in fact he accepts the fact that he is not the best actor in the film. By my count he is solidly in the bottom two.

But that’s where this movie separates itself from other Will Ferrell movies. Instead of playing someone with more mouth than brains here we see Ferrell as Harold Crick, IRS agent and watch wearer. That’s about the extent of his character at the start of this film.
A humdrum character who goes through an extraordinary series of events in a short period of time. The first of which is hearing a voice narrate his life.

That narrator is the voice of Emma Thompson and she’s not just narrating the movie, she’s the voice of author Kay Eiffel who is writing the book in which Crick is the main character.

Finally convinced he is not crazy and actually living in a story he seeks out literature Professor Jules Hilbert played by Dustin Hoffman, who is the best actor in the movie and steals every scene he is in.

As it turns out Eiffel’s literary style is such that she kills off the main character in all of her stories and Crick is her next victim. This has Crick quite upset.

Rounding out the cast is Queen Latifah, the author’s assistant sent by the publisher to get Kay off her writer’s block. I’ve said it before and I must stress the point. Rappers don’t make bad movies. And the Queen continues that tradition.

Finally we have Crick’s love interest. Played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. A college dropout baker hippy wannabe who Crick finds himself auditing. Can you guess what happens next? I’ll give you a hint, It’s not Will Ferrell sleeping with Emma Thompson, Queen Latifah or Dustin Hoffman!

You just won’t understand the complexity of this movie unless you read good books. Not just novels you find in the grocery store line, but really good books by people whose names get used in sentences with words like “literature” and “genius”. Tom Wolfe comes to mind, as does John Updike. People whose stories show real human growth and where seemingly insignificant things become the defining factors in the characters’ lives.

If you’ve read these kinds of books you know what I’m talking about, and you’ll get what this movie is about. You see this movie is not so much about the principle character Harold Crick, but really about the book Kay Eiffel is writing.

Those great books you’ve read, this is the story about how those great authors come up with those books.

If it’s possible for a movie to make you appreciate books this is the best attempt to do so. Ferrell’s performance is passable because he under acts for once in his career. His casing in the main role was simply to sell tickets, but it is by allowing the rest of the cast to lift up his performance that makes the movie better than the sum of it’s parts.

The movie is PG-13 and deservedly so for sexual situations and a wholly unnecessary f-bomb. But the appeal is to more mature audiences anyway. I doubt anyone who has yet to write an English term paper would be able to hold their attention on the screen… or is that what the sex scenes were for?

A Night at the Office

Wednesday night I decided it was time to go get a beer so I wanted to look for a bar I'd heard about called "The Office"

Great name, by the way.

"Honey, I'm going to the office!" 6 hours later you come home plastered. "I really love my job!"

Well it's a nice place. Brand new and it looks like a bar you'd see on CSI Miami. The bar itself was pretty packed so I squeezed in next to cute girl with freckles and a nose ring and ordered my Miller Lite.

"high five." The cute girl with the freckles and the nose ring said while holding up her hand. Oh, and she was pretty drunk too.

SoI high-fived her, but she only made contact with half of my hand.

"You missed," I said.

"Have you seen Borat?"

"No I haven't."

"He does that... High five!"

This time playing on her inebriation I missed her hand on purpose.

"You Missed again."

She started laughing not sure if missing was her fault or mine.

We tried high fiving a few more times and I became like Lucy to her Charlie Brown always snatching the football away just before Charlie can kick it.

Finally I missed on purpose and tapped her on the forehead. She laughed flurtatiously then introduced me to her boyfriend.