Barbara Bush Jr. victimized

Ugh it's a slow news day. It's the day before Thanksgiving and apparently no one wants to do anything I can make fun of. The only thing remotely interesting in the news today is that Barbara Bush Jr., first daughter, had her purse stolen in a Buenos Aires restaurant while the secret service looked on. [ABC] Not sure if the secret service thought it was some Argentinian custom to crawl under the table and grab purses but for some reason or other no one noticed. Now I'm sympathetic because I've had my purse stolen during dining but then again I din't have 250 pound military- trained body guards whose only job is to stare at me around. Can you imagine the poor petty thief that gets home and finds that he's stolen the purse of the first daughter? I'm not saying the US would do this but I wouldn't be surprised if that guy had a dozen or so apache helicopters circling his tin shack before noon the next day. In fact if Argentina isn't invaded by the beginning of December and Madonna isn't in there adopting kids by February then I have lost all faith in this presidency and the musical Evita.

Fine, that's not a pic of Barbara Bush Jr. but it will be in another 70 odd years.

A Computer beat out Daniel Craig

So the big box office weekend results are in, and on top is.......suspense...yes, you guessed it, some computer-animated movie called "Happy Feet" with some penguins generated by an inanimate object and enjoyed by millions of kids everywhere. And a disappointing number two is Casino Royale, the new Bond movie starring Daniel Craig, the blond British guy who everyone seems to have a beef with. I don't personally have a problem with this Dan guy, he seems like a good enough actor and did a good job in the underrated but good "Layer Cake." I guess it would be helpful if he didn't always look like he was squinting, and not in a good way like Pierce Brosnan but in the way I strain to see the 2 feet tall "E" on the eye chart in the doctor's office from 30 inches away without my glasses. But I digress, what I'm getting at is that it's not Daniel Craig's fault that actors are irrelevant. This Happy Feet I'm sure is a really excellent movie but honestly it took zero actors and only minimal originality to ask a computer to animate some story about penguins and it grosses $42 million dollars in one weekend, and it wasn't even a particularly cold weekend! (at least not here). So I've revised my goal in life, instead of being happy and helping Ethiopian orphans get a second chance at life, I think I'll just pull out the old wordpad and start animating!

Update: "Happy Feet" is the story of a penguin who cannot carry a tune like his brethren but can tap-dance up a storm.

Sad

"There is not one Hungarian who would be left untouched by the death of Ferenc Puskas. The best-known Hungarian of the 20th century has left... Ferenc Puskas has left us, but "Puskas Ocsi" the legend will always stay with us. "HUNGARIAN PRIME MINISTER FERENC GYURCSANY

"When a great player like him passes, the one thing you can do is reflect on what a great player he was and the great games he played in. He was a special player in his day, without question. How that Hungary team didn't win the 1954 World Cup is beyond me."- MANCHESTER UNITED MANAGER SIR ALEX FERGUSON

"Of all of us, he was the best. He had a seventh sense for soccer. If there were 1,000 solutions, he would pick the 1,001st."- HUNGARY TEAM-MATE NANDOR HIDEGKUTI

"Although he was a famous footballer he seemed very normal compared to today's modern stars. He lived in a modest flat below ours and was very generous. He often brought home footballs from training for the kids in the block to play with." OLALLA MARANON, A FORMER NEIGHBOUR IN MADRID [BBC]

George Clooney is sexy twice

So I'm not even sure how this makes any sense at all but George Clooney, age 100 has been picked to be People's sexiest man. He's old as cheese and he's been picked twice and the category is "Sexiest Man Alive" and Brad Pitt has also been picked twice. How does that make any sense? If you're the sexiest man alive, than that should be it- as long as you're alive and recognizably male you should rule, and others should be second or third. It makes even less sense to say that someone is sexiest man alive twice- is that some reaffirmation that you're still alive? In Clooney's case, maybe, but I honestly just cannot wrap my head around how you can be sexiest man alive, twice. Maybe I'm just too dumb for People. Irrelevant as it may be, People is above my intellectual threshold. I think I'll go cry myself to sleep on top of my stack of US Weekly, In Touch, OK, Hello, Hi, Sik, Celebfit- that'll make me feel all withit again.

CNN up to the minute coverage of deer

CNN continues its round-the-clock coverage of deer. Today we learn that deer collisions lead to about $1.1 billion dollars of property damage a year. [CNN] And that dear whistles, whatever the fuck those are, don't work and that these are the top ten states for incest, er I mean deer accidents.

1. Pennsylvania
2. Michigan
3. Illinois
4. Ohio
5. Georgia
6. Virginia
7. Minnesota
8. Texas
9. Indiana
10. South Carolina

Fascinating. So glad that we live in a world where such ground breaking coverage is embraced and not shunned.

I swear this is a real news story

I know I've made fun of CNN in the past but I wish I had saved it all up for this one glorious occasion. Among its latest news stories CNN now has one called: "Fake Pumpkin Threatens Small Deer's Life" and it is accompanied by the picture above, which looks like something from America's Funniest Home Videos, if that show in fact still exists.[CNN] So you're wondering how CNN could possibly have squeezed an entire story out of this. Well, let me take you through it. First we get just the facts: deer got pumpkin stuck, animal "experts" assessing the situation, has been seen around the 'hood, can't eat and possibly can't drink. Then we move on to the solution: tranquilize, take pumpkin off and release it into wild. Then other relevant points of note: deer will be more visible with giant pumpkin as hunting season begins, everyone trying to do right thing. Anyway can you imagine the guy that was sent out to cover the story of the deer in the gated community with a plastic pumpkin stuck on his head? He was probably hoping to interview some dictator and ask for his favorite recipe, a la hard hitting CNN news and instead he's sipping hot cider with some housewives in khakis and sweater sets and staring at a deer that's about to get shot by a fat guy in plaid.

Doogie and Vinni more than just friends?

I haven't done an early 90s sitcom update in quite a while and I think it's high time I got back to it. This ones comes on the heels of some exciting news revealed by Neil Patrick Harris just last week but I'll get to that in one second. Those of you of my generation and nearby will recognize the two in the pic as Doogie Howser MD and his best, and far less genius friend Vinnie Delphino from the hit tv show "Doogie Howser M.D." (1989-1993). The show centered around Doogie just trying to be a normal teenager, but alas, it was quite difficult since at 17 he was already a full-time doctor saving lives, pretending naked girls were only medically interesting, etc. Sigh- the times when it was seen as a sign of genius to write your diary on the computer.(no longer- see, e.g. this blog) So anyway the update on these two is that Neil has reveled that he is gay and now stars in a far less-memorable tv show called "How I met Your Mother," in which, ironically he plays a "womanizer." And Max Casella, the lovable and stereotypically Italian next door neighbor - what of him? As many of your already know, he has now come into his own as a stereotypical Italian and has a reoccurring role on the Sopranos. What a happy ending to an excellent show. Of course my dreams of being a doctor by the age of 17 were shattered when I flunked out of remedial chemistry, but I bare no grudge again the show for giving me unrealistic expectations. Oh no, that grudge is all used up on Mr. Tucker who should have seen it as a latent sign of genius when I tried to burn a hole in the middle of a graduated cylinder with a Bunsen burner. I had it on low heat- goddamnit!

Best Day Ever!

CNN is reporting that Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defense for the past six years has resigned from the Bush administration. [CNN] First Kfed now Rumsfeld! My god if I wasn't still working at my shitass job and I had won the lottery or something I would have said God was smiling on this world. As it is I will say only to God that he should go for the trifecta and get rid of morning news programs and if that's too much then just take Regis! Thanks!

Update: Kfed may not need to stick it elsewhere

Tyler [WWTDD] and Dlisted and Gawker and all those crazy kids all over the blogosphere are now reporting that the whole divorce is just one big publicity stunt to get sympathy and scare KFed sober.

Hah! As if! Kfed can't be scared! His CD has a hidden track titled "Middle Finger" on it- this guy is unscarable!

KFed will need to stick it elsewhere

Ye asked and ye shall receive. Unless you've been living under a rock, and one with soundproof walls at that, you already know that Britney Spears finally pulled the plug on her two year marriage to would-be rapper, back-up dancer and child-producing asswipe extraordinaire Kevin Federline. This morning TMZ has added a bit of spice to the story by claiming that KFed plans to fight for custody.[TMZ] Everyone is all happy and whatnot though because there's some air tight prenup that allows KFed to get off with only 350K and half of their Malibu mansion worth 7 million. This of course is excluding the money he got from selling all the wedding pics, the money to make his CD, tour the country, go to Vegas everyweekend, hire expensive hookers, order Cristal, bribe people to come to his shows, etc. etc. You get the picture. So this manchild- whose only talent appears to be hip-hop dancing behind teenage popstars and wearing XXL clothes is going to get and has already gotten more money than I will likely see in a lifetime. Anyway I'm at a loss for words- if there is a God out there, he must be teaching me a lesson for that time I peed in my Halloween costume and didn't tell anyone until 8 hours later in the first grade.

Bush is so wise; so good with talking

Sorry, sorry I know I haven't posted in a few days but I've had a brief vacation which temporarily made me less cynical but I think I'm back now. Today is election day and you should vote and you should try to avoid all the campaign commercials which so rudely interrupted my morning workout this morning. The Toronto Star, who I think must only report on the US midterm elections to amuse itself, has an article today reporting that the Republicans are going to lose and quoting Bush in a last ditch effort to campaign in Florida. Apparently this is what Bush had to say about the Dems:

"The Democrats' philosophy is this: If it breathes, tax it. And if stops breathing, find their children and tax them," said Bush, who also charged that Democrats don't have a plan to win in Iraq.

Ignore for a second the charming little accusation that Dems tax dead people and focus on the use of "it" and "their." So when it is breathing it is just an it but when it has children it becomes "their." I would just chalk it up to Bush's usual difficulties with grammar but I think there's more to it than that. Well...wait...no actually, no I don't. I started writing this whole thing on the complex family values arguments that underlie his use of "their" and just realized I was fooling myself. This is the man that named his daughter Jenna Bush- which if you didn't know better you'd think was the local stripper at the highway truck stop who gives lap dances for free on Tuesdays if you bring a coupon.

PS: I like that pic of Bush because it looks like he's looking through a peep hole

Brad is unauthorized

I bet if I gave all 1 people who read this blog regularly (thanks mom) a guess at who that was 1 out of 1 of them wouldn't get it right- unless they read gossip columns as much as I do which I can pretty much guarantee is not possible. Anyway that blue man up there is Brad Pitt in his boxers, apparently drenched in water- although I am unable to tell that from this angle. And yes this is just a lame excuse to put up a near-naked pick of Brad on my blog, to make it official that all I am is a slave to celebrity. The point of this picture is that it's in dispute- apparently Vanity Fair is putting it on their December cover and Brad has not given permission- shocking. [IMDB] Vanity Fair frankly couldn't care less and are just glad they don't have to wait another 20 years until some wacked out celebrity has an alien looking baby to get back into the news. I care only because that picture is really oddly blue and I'm not sure if that's supposed to be artistic or what. And also because photographers are endlessly getting naked pics of female celebs topless in their backyard or inside their showers or whatever and it barely makes it onto the E biography about them and here's this fuzzy, blue pick of Brad in basically shorts without a shirt, which BTW he signed a release for, and all of a sudden I'm supposed to be all enraged at the illegal use of his likeness. If I were Brad I'd be more upset at being made to look like a cross between a smurf and a stalker.

Guest Columnist: The Scottish hate inane car commercials

We are back this week with Bloggi Bag guest columnist, The Scotsman, to share with us his views of marketing. Of course we Americans are marketing whores so it's difficult for us to understand his distaste but try and sympathize- Europeans are more refined than we are!

Is it just me or has anybody else noticed that TV advertisements appear to be trying to appeal to, well, actually, I’m not at all sure who they’re trying to appeal to. Car adverts are particularly perplexing. That one on the frozen lake with the Citreon C4 morphing into a giant speed-skating transformer leaves me utterly baffled every time.( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_g_74Ug2zw) Who, exactly, is the target demographic for that nonsense? Fans of Transformers? Do kids still like them? But kids don’t buy cars anyway. Do you see why I’m baffled? Then there’s Audi’s claim at end of their latest advert:

“TO DATE NASA HAS FILED 6,509 PATENTS. IN DEVELOPING THE A6, AUDI FILED 9,621”

Well that’s super. So can the A6 travel through the cold vacuum of outer-space then? The short answer is “no”. In my opinion, Audi should be ashamed of themselves and I’ll explain why. The Audi A6 has been on the market since 1994. Let’s estimate that this car was in development for ten years before finally going to market. We can therefore state the following:

“ON AVERAGE, AUDI FILED ALMOST FOUR HUNDRED PATENTS PER YEAR AND ALL THEY’VE GOT TO SHOW FOR IT IS A CAR.”

NASA was founded in 1958. Let’s create a similar statement on their behalf:

ON AVERAGE, NASA ONLY NEEDED TO FILE ABOUT 130 PATENTS PER YEAR TO SEND PROBES ON A FLY-PAST OF VENUS (1962); PUT MEN ON THE MOON (1969); LAND PROBES ON MARS AND SEND BACK THE FIRST COLOUR PICTURES OF ANOTHER PLANET (1975); SEND PROBES TO INVESTIGATE JUPITER, SATURN, URANUS AND NEPTUNE (1977); DESIGN, BUILD AND LAUNCH THE FIRST SPACE SHUTTLE (1981); PUT THE HUBBLE TELESCOPE INTO ORBIT (1990); AND FINALLY, CONTRIBUTE TOWARDS THE DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION (CURRENT).”

So you see, the boffins at Audi are morons. All those patents, all that head scratching and all they could come up with is a car. A FUCKING CAR! In lieu of finding a better explanation, I can only conclude that their patents were crap. Complete and utter needless crap. If I owned shares in Audi I’d be asking some serious questions about how well my investment is being utilised.

Fuck off Audi. At least NASA did something worthwhile with their patents. If you want to impress me then put a car on the moon.