'Best of TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
Baron Dave Romm
Cheap Holiday Thrills
By Baron Dave Romm
Productivity is up but employment is down. This means either of two things: People are working harder or prices are way up. If you're reading this, chances are you're working harder. Whether you're employed or not. So here are some more cheap if not free holiday gifts. Most of these take effort on the part of the giver. And isn't that what the Channukah spirit is all about?
Oh, and just to add to the movement: miserable failure. Heh.
In days of yore, things were on the web because it was cool to do. Alas, those days are behind us... but not completely. You can still send free e-cards. The Chandra Observatory lets you send astronomical cards, including generic winter holiday. New Yorker cartoons may not be seasonal, but they make a fun e-card. Kodak let's use your own pictures for e-cards. (I don't know if the registration costs anything.) Can't get everyone together for a big holiday meal? Send some gourmet postcards. Send some Channukah cards and don't let your Muslim friends feel left out! Send an e-mail to our troops overseas care of Operation Dear Abby.
Use MS Word for something other than letters. Make gift certificates you family. Pledge to do something you usually don't: the laundry, drive to an event, go to Aunt Hilda's, etc. Promise your mate something special when redeemed. Have a tween who's bugging you? Give them a certificate for one (1) stay out an hour after curfew, when they check with you first. And if you make a card or certificate yourself, write their name in Egyptian Heiroglyphics or using the Futurama letter code.
Fly over your house (or anyone's) and get pictures. Similarly, the Space Imaging site is fun. Decorate gifts with pictures of their homes from the air. Terraserver or Microsoft's terraserver will take a nice aerial pic of anywhere, while the USGS has a nice site for a Digital Backyard with links to topographical maps and more. For more horizontal views of NASA try the Earthcam feeds of the shuttle and explore other cams from there. On the ground, get driving directions from anywhere to anywhere using Mapquest.
While I can't say everything listed there is worth the price, it's hard to beat Totally Free Stuff. You might have to wade through some annoying pop-ups and commercial sites. And, of course, there's no such thing as a free lunch; many of these are prizes if you get something else. Still, they've come through the few times I've had the interest to get something mentioned.
Did your crayons cause a medical emergency? Do you desperately need tech support for your colored drawing implements? Call 1-800-CRAYOLA (during business hours). Answer those tough questions from your three-year-old. Need help cooking that big turkey? 1-800-BUTTERB(ALL) or even the Reynolds helpline 1-800-745-4000.
You already have a computer. You have some of the music I've been recommending. You have your own favorites. Perhaps you have a vinyl album or even a family cassette that no one's heard in a while. Digitize the cassette, input the album, mix those songs! Make a holiday CD for friends and family! Burning a CD is easier than ever. Use a microphone and input a greeting or as narration between tracks. Tell why this song reminds you of the recipient. Use a family picture as crystal case cover or CD label. Better than one of those personalized "this is what we did this year" cards, and about as cheap.
Speaking of family memories: Scan those old pictures and start a family page! Annotating pictures is one of the most valuable things you can do. Don't know who's that person standing next to grandma? Put it on the web and ask her.
Generic advice: Usually, the best time of the year to mail anything is the week between Christmas and New Years. I suspect that won't be the case this year, as people are waiting for the after Christmas sales. I know I am. In any event, if you're going to mail anything (or order something by mail), either do it now (this week) or wait. In fact, just wait to buy gifts until after the holidays. Everyone will understand, except maybe the kids. Get them stocking stuffers and hold off on the big ticket items.
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia with a radio show, a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. He reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E here, and you can hear the last two Shockwave broadcasts in Real Audio here (scroll down to Shockwave). Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air.
He's Been Busy!
The Worried Shrimp
Reader Comment
Re: CHRISTMAS SONG LIST
Hi Marty.
That was a great Christmas song list with one major omission. "A
Christmas Gift For You" from Phil Spector is still my favorite album to play
during the holidays. Darlene Love, The Crystals, The Ronettes and so much more.
MERRY CHRISTMAS
JD
Thanks, JD!
Reader Recommendation
Babes Against Bush
Hi Marty,
I can't tell you If the pictures are any good (the server is swamped), but the following quote tells me where my cheesecake dollars should go.
HANNITY: And also, you say that he's an election hijacking, economy wrecking, warmongering chimp and a bozo president. Is that the kind of language you want to be associated with?
DAVID LIVINGSTONE, CALENDAR PROMOTER: Yes.
Babes Against Bush
Chris
Thanks, Chris!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
A gray, rainy day.
The kid is doing much better, but still complaining that nothing tastes right. Made his favorite chili for supper, but he complained it tasted 'watery.'
One of our new neighbors stopped by - his Christmas lights were stolen off his house & shrubs last night.
The lights were carefully removed, not vandalized. Yeah, the economy is booming when people steal decorative lights.
Tonight, Monday, CBS starts the night with a RERUN 'Yes Dear', followed by a RERUN 'Still Standing', then a RERUN
'Raymond', followed by a RERUN '2½ Men', then a RERUN 'CSI: Miami'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Dave are Matt Damon, Jack Johnson with G-Love, and "Survivor: Pearl Islands" evictee Christa Hastie.
Scheduled on a FRESH Craiggers are Tom Green, Nicole Ritchie, and Counting Crows.
NBC begins the evening with a FRESH 'Fear Factor', followed by the Season Finale of 'Average Joe'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Jay are Jude Law, Tracy Morgan, and Pink.
On a traditional Monday-night RERUN Conan are Michael Caine, Jason Biggs, and Joss Stone.
Scheduled on a FRESH Carson Daly are Billy Bob Thornton, Eliza Dushku, and Pat Monahan.
ABC has 'MNF' and 'Primetime Monday'. East coast gets 'Primetime', then the game. Left coast gets the game first.
Scheduled on a FRESH Jimmy Kimmel are Mike Ditka and Hoobastank, with this week's guest co-host Method Man.
The WB offers a RERUN '7th Heaven', followed by a RERUN 'Everwood'.
Faux has the movie 'Nutty Professor II: The Klumps'.
UPN has a RERUN 'The Parkers', followed by a RERUN 'Eve', then a RERUN
'Girlfriends', followed by a RERUN 'Half & Half'.
A&E has 'American Justice', 'Biography' (Countdown), 'Cold Case Files', and 'City Confidential'.
AMC offers the movie 'Crocodile Dundee', followed by the movie 'The Shawshank Redemption', then a 'special' - 'AMC Project' (Malkovich's Mail), and the movie 'Psycho III'.
BBC -
[6pm] 'BBC World News';
[6:30pm] 'Cash in the Attic' - Burrows;
[7pm] 'House Invaders' - Roath;
[7:30pm] 'Changing Rooms' - Isleworth;
[8pm] 'Murder in Mind' - Favours;
[9pm] 'Waking the Dead' - Walking On Water;
[11pm] 'Murder in Mind' - Favours;
[12am] 'Waking the Dead' - Walking On Water;
[2am] 'Murder in Mind' - Favours;
[3am] 'Waking the Dead' - Walking On Water;
[5am] 'Murder in Mind' - Favours; and
[6am] 'BBC World News'. (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has 'West Wing', the movie 'Crazy In Alabama', and 'West Wing'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Jon Stewart is Eva Mendes.
History has 'Modern Marvels', 'History vs. Hollywood', 'Samurai', 'Mail Call', and another 'Mail Call'.
SciFi has the movie 'Terminator 2: Judgment Day', followed by 'Battlestar Galactica' (part 1 of 2).
TCM pays tribute to counting in the morning, a little Hollywood witchcraft in the afternoon & romance all night.
[6am] 'Once Upon a Honeymoon' (1942);
[8am] 'Breakfast For Two' (1937);
[9:30am] 'Three Loves Has Nancy' (1938);
[11am] 'Four's A Crowd' (1938);
[1pm] 'Key To The City' (1950);
[3pm] 'The Reformer And The Redhead' (1950);
[4:30pm] 'I Married A Witch' (1942);
[6pm] 'Bell, Book and Candle' (1959);
[8pm] 'A Little Romance' (1979);
[10pm] 'Love On The Run' (1936);
[11:30pm] 'It's A Wonderful World' (1939);
[1:30am] 'Without Reservations' (1946);
[3:30am] 'Cross Country Romance' (1940);
[5am] 'The Naughty Flirt' (1931). (ALL TIMES EST)
Actor Ernest Borgnine visits the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Dec. 7, 2003. Borgnine, a World War II veteran and Academy Award recipient, was the keynote speaker at the 62nd Annual Pearl Harbor Day Commemoration.
Photo by Lucy Pemoni
The Information One-Stop
Moose & Squirrel
'GOAT -- Greatest of All Time'
Muhammad Ali
Forty years on, Muhammad Ali returned to the scene of his first heavyweight title victory for the US release of a mammoth new book celebrating his life and accomplishments.
Ali sat at the foot of the ring where, as a 22-year-old named Cassius Clay, he upset 7-1 odds to defeat Sonny Liston on February 25, 1964. The decor, ambiance and lighting of the fight were recreated in an amphitheater at the Miami Beach Convention Center.
The evening, billed as "A Night to Celebrate the Champ," marked the US release of "GOAT -- Greatest of All Time" -- a 34-kilogram (75-pound), 800-page book of photographs, artwork, articles and essays about the boxing legend.
Actor Will Smith, who portrayed Ali in the film of the same name, acted as spokesman for the boxer during the evening. "He told me I was almost pretty enough to play Muhammad Ali," Smith joked, in a reference to Ali's famous bragging.
Muhammad Ali
'SNL' Host
Al Sharpton
Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton portrayed lawyer Johnnie Cochran, a sushi salesman and one of the three wise men searching for Jesus during his host stint on "Saturday Night Live."
He was also confronted with a track suit-wearing vision of his former self, even singing a few verses of "I Feel Good" during a respectable James Brown imitation.
Sharpton, though, was nearly upstaged by reality TV and inadvertent video star Paris Hilton, who appeared in a double-entendre filled "interview" with Jimmy Fallon.
The presidential candidate's appearance wasn't seen everywhere. All four NBC affiliates in Iowa refused to air "Saturday Night Live" for fear it would activate federal "equal time provisions" and compel them to offer time to the other eight Democrats running for president.
For the rest, Al Sharpton
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts' 2003 Honorees (L to R, sitting): singer Loretta Lynn and violinist Itzhak Perlman, (L to R, standing): singer James Brown, actress Carol Burnett and director Mike Nichols, pose for their 'family' picture, December 6, 2003 in Washington. The Honorees attended a gala dinner to honor their lifetime achievements in the arts.
Photo by Mike Theiler
Suffers Nobel Limelight in Sweden
J.M. Coetzee
Media-shy South African novelist J.M. Coetzee, awarded the 2003 Nobel literature prize, reluctantly took the limelight in Stockholm on Sunday to deliver his Nobel lecture -- but hid behind a literary persona.
The 63-year-old author is known for giving lectures as one of his characters and assumed the role of Daniel Defoe's castaway Robinson Crusoe, a tale Coetzee recreated in "Foe" in 1986, to discuss "the business of writing."
Coetzee, whose yen for privacy extends to only using his initials, told a Swedish journalist who scored a rare interview with him aired on Friday that "the language he speaks goes down very well on the page but doesn't go down well in conversation."
J.M. Coetzee
Visits Jordan On Peace Mission
Richard Gere
Richard Gere was in Jordan on a peace mission and will also visit the Palestinian territories, an aide told AFP.
"He came here to listen. That is why he doesn't want to talk to the press," said Daoud Kuttab, who is on the advisory board of Peacemakers Circle International (PCI).
On Monday, Gere is to visit the Palestinian territories and meet two leading figures, Legislative Council member Hanan Ashrawi and Yasser Abed Rabbo, a promoter of the Geneva Initiative peace plan unveiled last week.
Richard Gere
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Oregon Film Wins, Boyle Honored
Santa Fe Film Festival
A big turnout for an out-of-Hollywood experience gave Oregon-made "Indigo" the Audience Choice Award on Saturday at the 4th annual Santa Fe Film Festival, and a French-Belgian film about women surviving in the former Soviet state of Georgia won best picture.
Actor Peter Boyle of CBS' "Everybody Loves Raymond" was one of three recipients of Luminaria lifetime achievement awards presented Saturday night. Boyle's award came with a kiss on his bald head from presenter Shirley MacLaine.
Other Luminaria winners were British director Stephen Frears and New Mexico novelist-screenwriter Max Evans. Oscar-winning writer-producer-director Walon Green was given the Raven award for lifetime achievement in screenwriting. The awards came after a retrospective screening Saturday of "The Hi-Lo Country," directed by Frears and adapted by Green from Evans' novel.
Santa Fe Film Festival
Wadji Kanj, right, of South Plainfield, N.J., plays a decorated baritone horn during the 30th annual 'Tuba Christmas' concert at the Rockerfeller Plaza Ice Rink, Sunday, Dec. 7, 2003, in New York. Tuba Christmas was conceived in 1974 by tuba virtuoso Harvey Phillips and is now an annual Christmas tradition in over 150 cities around the world.
Photo by Mary Altaffer
New Hendrix Tribute
'Power of Soul'
A Jimi Hendrix tribute disc being spearheaded by the rock icon's half-sister Janie Hendrix will feature a previously unreleased Stevie Ray Vaughan medley, as well as newly recorded covers from Prince, George Clinton and Bootsy Collins, Eric Clapton, Musiq and several others.
Titled "Power of Soul," after Hendrix's song of the same name, the disc will benefit the United Negro College Fund.
Due May 4 by Los Angeles-based Image Entertainment and in conjunction with Experience Hendrix, the album contains a 1983 live Vaughan medley of "Little Wing" and "Third Stone From the Sun," Musiq's cover of "Are You Experienced?," Eric Gales doing "Foxy Lady" and Prince's reimagination of "Red House" as "Purple House."
There will also be tracks from Sting, Santana, John Lee Hooker, Earth, Wind & Fire, Chaka Kahn with Kid Rock guitarist Kenny Olson, Sounds of Blackness, George Duke, Cee-Lo and Robert Randolph and the Family Band.
'Power of Soul'
Blames Doctor for Drugs
Ozzy Osbourne
Rocker Ozzy Osbourne claims he was overprescribed a host of powerful anti-psychotic and tranquilizing drugs by a Beverly Hills physician, leading to a 42-pill-per-day habit that also accounted for his perplexing behavior on the hit TV series "The Osbournes."
Osbourne's claim, supported by credit card records and other receipts, was reported Saturday on the Los Angeles Times' Web site.
The 55-year old rock star said he was prescribed Valium, Dexedrine, Mysoline and other powerful drugs, which medical experts asserted were, on its face, not proper for any one patient to take at one time.
Osbourne's doctor, David Kipper of Beverly Hills, has been investigated for overprescribing drugs to other celebrity patients, the newspaper reported.
For a lot more, Ozzy Osbourne
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
Friends Help At Auction
Peabo Bryson
Friends of Peabo Bryson stepped in to help the award-winning singer keep some of his prized possessions, including at least one of his two Grammys.
Bryson's Grammy Awards for "Beauty and the Beast" and "A Whole New World" were auctioned during the weekend to help pay his $1.2 million tax debt. The Internal Revenue Service seized all of Bryson's property from his Atlanta home in August.
A woman who cast the winning $9,400 bid for one of the Grammys identified herself and her associates only as "very close friends of the family."
"We're giving it back to him," she told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Peabo Bryson
Greek filmmaker Constantino Costa Gavras speaks in a press conference in the National Hotel of Cuba, on Sunday December 7, 2003 in Havana, Cuba. Gavras is a special guest of the 25th Havana Film Festival, where a special exhibition of his work is taking place.
Photo by Cristobal Herrera
Sells at Auction
'Waltons' Family Home
The two-story home of the family that inspired "The Waltons" television series was sold at auction for $122,000.
The 1,469-square-foot house became famous when Earl Hamner Jr. created "The Waltons," the folksy TV show portraying a close-knit family in Depression-era Virginia that was based on his family.
The house had been in the Hamner family for more than a century but Earl Hamner's youngest brother, James Hamner, has said he is too ill to maintain the house where he has spent most of his life. James Hamner, who inspired the Waltons character "Jim Bob," has emphysema and heart problems.
'Waltons' Family Home
Wins British Turner Art Prize
Grayson Perry
A transvestite potter beat the creators of a pair of bronze sex dolls on Sunday to land the Turner, Britain's most controversial art prize.
Brothers Jake and Dinos Chapman were hot favorites to win the 20,000 pound ($34,560) prize with their graphic depiction of oral sex. But the judges opted instead for Grayson Perry, a British ceramic artist who likes to dress up as a woman and call himself Claire.
Perry, the latest in a long line of controversial artists to land the prize, said: "One of the reasons I dress up as a woman is my low self-esteem, to go with the image of women being seen as second-class. It is like pottery: that is seen as a second-class thing too."
Grayson Perry
Seek Young News Viewers
Cooper & Olbermann
With their irreverent, one-hour cable news programs, Keith Olbermann and CNN's Anderson Cooper are their networks' best hopes for reaching young viewers, although they have distinctly different ways of going after them.
Olbermann, the former ESPN "Sportscenter" anchorman, more obviously plays for laughs on his "Countdown" show. Cooper plays it straighter but, well, when's the last time the White Stripes' music played when Larry King was cutting to a commercial?
Cooper came to CNN with an audience that grew up on him. His television career started as an international correspondent for Channel One, the newscast beamed into high schools.
Olbermann calls "Countdown" the best show he's ever done. He's lasted eight months so far, a notable achievement for both him and notoriously trigger-happy MSNBC.
Cooper & Olbermann
Fetches $1 Million
Painting Found in Attic
A landscape painting by nineteenth century American romantic painter Martin Johnson Heade was sold at auction for just over $1 million on Sunday after being stashed away in an attic for over 60 years.
The 12-inch by 26-inch river scene, which art historians did not even know existed, was discovered in a home near Boston by antiques experts Leigh and Leslie Keno as they filmed an episode of the new PBS television series Find!
Heade, who died in 1904, is now described by art experts as one of the best American romantic painters, but was not considered a major artist during his lifetime and some of his works served more utilitarian than decorative purposes.
Painting Found in Attic
Baby bear Trouble climbs on top of a German peacekeeper at the National Park of Lipovica in Kosovo on Sunday, Dec. 7, 2003. KFOR peacekepeers are taking care of the two baby bears.
Photo by Visar Kryeziu
'The Osbournes'
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