'TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
Another Fresh One!
The Worried Shrimp
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Another pretty day. Could see all the way to Catalina from Signal Hill.
Picked up fresh crickets, and they're singing nicely.
Someone pointed out tonight that Florida experienced a 'Trifecta' of sorts today. All 3 college football teams (Florida, Florida State & Miami) ended up in the toilet, Bowl-wise, this year.
Tonight, Saturday, CBS offers nothing fresh - first up, a RERUN 'Touched By An Angle', then a RERUN 'The District', followed by a RERUN 'The Agency'.
NBC offers a half-hour version of 'Dateline', and follows it with the RERUN movie 'Twister'.
'SNL' is a RERUN, with Matt Damon & Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band.
For the 4th evening in a row, ABC offers football, so the west coast will have local programming in prime time.
The WB opens with a RERUN 'Dawson's Creek', and follows it with a RERUN 'Birds Of Prey'.
Faux has a RERUN 'Cops', followed by a RERUN 'Cops', and then 'America's Most Wanted'.
UPN has the movie 'Adrenalin: Fear The Rush'..
Anyone have any opinions?
Or reviews?
`
(See below for addresses)
Changchun, China
Ice Sculptures
Tourists admire ice-sculptures during the ice and snow festival in Changchun, in northeast China's Jilin Province, Friday, Jan. 3, 2003. The festival opened on Friday evening and will last for 88 days.
Photo by Xu Jiajun
HOT New Page!
from Michael Dare
Gets It Wrong - (Again?)
New York Times
Punk rock and the New York Times don't mix. The retro rebel music and the theoretical paper-of-record had a head-on collision in last Sunday's Week in Review section, where an
essay about the tragic death of Clash frontman Joe Strummer was accompanied by a photo captioned, "Joe Strummer in Passaic, N.J., 1980." Problem is, the photo was of Clash
guitarist Mick Jones, who is still very much alive. A Times spokeswoman promised to run a correction this Sunday.
New York Times
Record $2.1B in 2002
Music Tours
Classic acts such as Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones and Cher lured more people to concerts in 2002 and helped the industry make a record $2.1 billion in ticket sales, according to figures released Friday.
This was the fourth straight year concert receipts reached record levels in America. There were $1.75 billion in sales in 2001, according to trade publication Pollstar, which tracks the concert industry.
McCartney had the top-grossing tour, raking in $103 million. Fans paid an average of $130 per ticket to see the former Beatle, who hadn't toured the United States in about a decade.
The Rolling Stones tour placed second, coming in at $88 million, with an average ticket price of $119. Pollstar said it was the first time the Stones hadn't hit the No. 1 spot with their U.S. tour.
Cher's tour — which the singer said would be her last — was in third place, at $74 million, followed by the Billy Joel & Elton John concerts, which grossed $65 million, and the Dave Matthews Band, at $60 million.
Other acts in the top 10 were Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Aerosmith, Creed, Neil Diamond and The Eagles.
Music Tours
Pollstar Web site
Rio de Janeiro
Copacabana Beach
A worshipper tosses a floral offering for 'iemanja,' the 'Goddess of the sea,' on Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, December 31, 2002. More than two million people are expected
here for the annual new year's celebration.
Photo by Bruno Domingos
Fans Mark Birthday Anniversary
J.R.R. Tolkien
"Lord of the Rings" fans worldwide celebrated what would have been the 111th birthday of J.R.R. Tolkien on Friday by raising a glass to the author.
The milestone holds special significance for devotees of the fantasy trilogy — Tolkien referred to it as an "eleventyfirst birthday ... a rather curious number and a very respectable age for a hobbit."
The opening installment of the trilogy, "The Fellowship of the Ring," begins with the "long-awaited party" held to celebrate the 111th birthday of hobbit Bilbo Baggins.
Tolkien himself did not make the grand age of his character, dying in Oxford on Jan. 3, 1973, aged 81.
The British Tolkien Society, which has members in 43 countries, said it planned celebrations at venues as varied as London's Leicester Square, a Hong Kong restaurant and a bar in Hollywood.
The society asked members to raise a glass in a toast to "the professor" at 9 p.m. local time — the moment at which Tolkien posthumously caught up with his creation.
J.R.R. Tolkien
Plays the Name Game
Sydney Tamiia Poitier
When you hear the name Sidney Poitier, you think of the legendary actor, right? And that's exactly why his daughter goes by the name Sydney Tamiia Poitier in her acting career.
She says she had always been known as Sydney Poitier and when it came to her middle name, she "never used it growing up." But when Poitier became a member of the Screen Actors Guild, she added the
middle name because "it would be too confusing" to have father and daughter share the same name.
Poitier stars in the television series "Abby," which makes its debut on the UPN television network next week. Poitier's character, Abby, produces a fictional sports show, but in real life Poitier
says she has very little interest in sports. "She loves sports, I don't love sports. I don't know much about sports. I'm trying really hard to familiarize myself with the rules of the games and
names and stuff like that because I need to know them for the show," Poitier told AP Radio.
Sydney Tamiia Poitier
Wedding News
Rachel Griffiths
Rachel Griffiths married artist Andrew Taylor, a friend of 17 years, in a candlelit ceremony on New Year's Eve in Melbourne.
Griffiths, star of HBO's "Six Feet Under," was married in the chapel at her old school, Star of the Sea, her publicist, Maria Farmer, said Wednesday.
The 33-year-old actress walked down the aisle with her mother, Anna Griffiths, in a ceremony attended by more than 140 guests. Griffiths and Taylor were married by Griffiths' uncle,
Jesuit priest Father Andrew Hamilton, in a Catholic ceremony, Farmer said.
The ceremony was followed by a party at the historic Palais Theater in the Melbourne seaside suburb of St. Kilda.
Farmer said the newlyweds planned a weeklong honeymoon in Australia.
Rachel Griffiths
www.hbo.com/sixfeetunder/
New Mexico Council Backs Film
Val Kilmer
The state Investment Council has voted to put $4.7 million in the upcoming thriller "Blind Horizon," starring Val Kilmer, which is being produced near Las Vegas, N.M.
"The intent of the film investment program is to invest in projects that hire New Mexicans and help us develop our professional crews," said Nancy Everist, director of the state Film Office.
The state will receive 5 percent of the revenues once "Blind Horizon," which also stars Neve Campbell and Sam Shepard, breaks even. The council expects to recoup its investment within two years.
Last July, the council approved investing in "Suspect Zero," starring Aaron Eckhart, Carrie-Anne Moss and Ben Kingsley.
Val Kilmer
New Mexico Economic Development Department Web site
Publicists Says Not at Phish Show
Tom Hanks
Is Tom Hanks a Phish-head or not? Publicists for the actor said Friday that an onstage cameo at Phish's New Year's Eve concert by someone identified as Hanks was almost certainly not him.
"He was going with his family for a skiing holiday and had no plans to be in New York," publicist Wendy Morris said, adding that the actor himself could not be reached Friday.
The Associated Press, The New York Times and other news outlets reported that Hanks appeared briefly on stage at the jam band's Madison Square Garden concert. The sold-out concert was Phish's first after a two-year hiatus.
A clip of Hanks' movie "Cast Away" was shown and his name was announced. A man who looked like the Oscar-winning actor then appeared on stage.
The apparent hoax was reported Friday by the online site Salon.com.
Tom Hanks
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
CNBC, Dow Jones Cancel Show
'WSJ Editorial Board with Stuart Varney'
One of the highest-profile anchors on cable business network CNBC has left the network while his show, jointly produced with the Wall Street Journal, has been canceled, a network spokeswoman said on Friday.
CNBC and newspaper publisher Dow Jones & Co. Inc. said they had canceled "WSJ Editorial Board with Stuart Varney," their jointly produced weekly news show that had featured editors from the Journal.
The show was hosted by Varney, a long-time TV business journalist who for years had his own program on CNN. Journal staff such as editorial page editor Paul Gigot joined Varney in discussing current affairs.
Varney, who won a Peabody Award at CNN for his coverage of the stock market crash in 1987, could not be reached for comment. The CNBC spokeswoman was not aware of his future plans.
A Dow Jones spokeswoman also confirmed that the show was ending due to differences between the two sides as to the program's direction.
'WSJ Editorial Board with Stuart Varney'
San Cristobal de Las Casas
Zapatistas
Zapatistas carry torches as they march in San Cristobal de Las Casas, in Mexico's Chiapas state, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2003, to commemorate the ninth anniversary of the rebel group's uprising against a government that they say continues to betray them.
Photo by Eduardo Verdugo
MTV Barred From Campus Building
'Sex in the Itty Bitty City'
Mississippi University for Women has withdrawn permission for MTV to use a campus building to interview women for a new reality series.
In an e-mail to alumnae, MUW President Claudia Limbert said producers didn't mention the show's working title when they asked for the use of a room at the student center.
The series is tentatively titled "Sex in the Itty Bitty City." Although modeled after HBO's fictional New York-based "Sex and the City," the show will document real women's strategies,
successes and failures in the search for a mate.
"It's going to be about what life, dating and socializing is like in a smaller community," MTV spokeswoman Marnie Malter said this week. "We are going to ask several people to
allow a film crew to follow them through the dating process."
She said producers would conduct the interviews elsewhere in Columbus next week. Interviews are also scheduled in Hope, Ark., and Opelousas, La.
'Sex in the Itty Bitty City'
Stuffed With Cannabis
Chicken Legs
Police say they have foiled an attempt to smuggle fried chicken legs stuffed with cannabis to a gunman involved in one of Britain's longest armed sieges on record.
Detectives agreed to let the gunman order the food in a bid to persuade him to end the stand-off at a house in east London where he has been holding a man hostage for more than a week.
But when officers examined the food delivered by a friend of the gunman on Sunday, they found the cooked chicken was full of cannabis, a police spokeswoman told Reuters.
The next day when the same friend came back with another chicken meal, police arrested him and discovered more cannabis inside the food.
The ongoing stand-off, which started at the house in Hackney on December 26 after the man shot at officers trying to remove a car outside, has become one of the country's longest armed sieges with about 50 officers involved.
Chicken Legs
Says Giggles Cost Him Stage Career
Hugh Grant
Hugh Grant's admitted "bad giggling problem" cost him a career on stage. Grant says whenever he'd get a laugh on stage, he'd start laughing himself because he was "so delighted." Grant says he never
came across anyone with a worse problem until he met Sandra Bullock.
The two actors couldn't stop giggling while filming "Two Weeks Notice" together. While the two shared plenty of laughs on the set, Grant didn't share Bullock's talent for the more physical scenes.
Grant says he wishes he could do physical comedy as well as Bullock. "It used to make me rather jealous because I'm absolutely hopeless at that. There was one scene where (screenwriter) Martin Lawrence
had an idea that I should do some stuff with some dumbbells, and I said 'no darling, I don't do schtick.' And he said 'no, no, you do, you do, it'll be funny.' And we shot it, and sure enough it was
hideously embarrassing. So thankfully it's not in the movie," Grant told AP Radio.
Hugh Grant
Judge Prevents Release of Video
Diana Ross
A judge has temporarily prevented police from releasing video shot during singer Diana Ross' drunken-driving arrest earlier this week.
Ross' attorney, Greg Davis, argued the video isn't public record because it wasn't made by the police officer who made the traffic stop. Davis said the officer who shot it did so only after learning the driver was Ross.
Bev Ginn, representing the city, told the judge the tapes were "made under the ordinary course of business."
Pima County Superior Court Judge John F. Kelly, who approved the temporary restraining order Thursday, set a Jan. 14 hearing to discuss a permanent injunction.
Several media outlets, including "Inside Edition," the Arizona Daily Star and KOLD-TV, have requested copies.
Diana Ross
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
Waltham Abbey
Axes Of Evil
Axe attack wrecks historic abbey
An axe-wielding man has gone on the rampage at Waltham Abbey, wounding two people and wrecking the interior of the historic church, police have said.
The man attacked two people on Friday before turning on the abbey, which boasts some of the finest Norman architecture in England.
"The damage to the abbey is extensive and includes a smashed stained-glass window, smashed plaster statues and a smashed church organ," a police spokeswoman said.
Abbey warden Linda Jewson estimated the damage at more than 200,000 pounds. "He ran into the abbey wielding two axes and literally ran amok in the church and wrecked it," she told the BBC.
The abbey is also dear to traditionalists because it is thought to stand on the burial place of King Harold, England's last Saxon king who was killed in the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
Axes Of Evil
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park
Kilauea
Visitors to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park get a close view of lava from the Kilauea Volcano, Thursday, Jan. 2, 2003, in Volcano, Hawaii. For residents and other self-professed 'lava junkies,'
the fiery glow of the Kilauea Volcano never gets old, not even after two decades. Friday marks 20 years of continuous eruption of the volcano, a spectacle that has brought thousands of people per day to the park.
Photo by David Jordan
Starting 'Big Dog' Rumors
Barbara Walters
Does Barbara Walters know something about Bill Clinton's TV future that we don't?
Walters - in a nudge-nudge, wink-wink kind of way on yesterday's "The View" - added fuel to persistent rumors that the ex-president will, eventually, host a TV talk show .
"Do you think that this year Bill Clinton will get a television show?" Walters asked her "View" co-hosts in a roundtable discussion of 2003 predictions.
"No, Bill is not going to do a television show," answered Star Jones.
"Ahhh . . . don't be so sure," Walters responded.
"You know something," said Meredith Vieira.
"I don't know anything," Walters said. "I only know how to swim with the dolphins," she said, referring to an earlier video clip showing her on vacation swimming with dolphins.
Barbara Walters
White-Tipped Reef Shark
'Jigsaw'
Jigsaw isn't a typical family pet.
He's more than 4 feet long, has a dorsal fin and loves calamari.
The 2 1/2-year-old white-tipped reef shark has been living with John Valentine and his family for more than two years. But the beloved pet has grown too large for their
living room aquarium, so the family found Jigsaw bigger digs at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Jigsaw was just 16 inches long when Valentine bought him from a friend in August 2000. Since then, Jigsaw has become a part of the family.
Though he'll eat any new fish introduced into his tank, the Valentines said he steers clear of munching on the fish he's lived with since he was small.
"He's friends with the fish in there. They cohabitate," said Valentine's wife, Whitney.
"I never knew a shark had character or an alliance with things it actually grew up with," Valentine said.
'Jigsaw'
Design Finalists
California Quarter
Is California defined by panning prospectors, sea swept cypresses, the movie industry or the Golden Gate Bridge?
Those are the top choices among proposed images for the state's upcoming commemorative quarter and Californians now have the chance to cast their vote on what design should be used.
More than 8,000 designs, including grizzly bears and a variety of landscape vistas have been narrowed down to 20 finalists that will vie for one of five spots to be handed over to the U.S.
mint for final selection, said Kevin Starr, the state librarian and chairman of the California Quarter Committee.
Of the final 20 finalists, ten picture the Golden Gate Bridge in one form or another. There are five that show prospectors as a representation of the mid-1800s Gold Rush; five show strips of film
to represent the movie industry; seven have depictions of towering redwoods, pines or sequoias and three show bears.
Unlike many states, California chose to include the general population in at least part of the design process. Submissions were received from art schools, colleges and independent artists between
September and November of last year. The cast of choices was narrowed by a committee to 100 and again trimmed to 20, which have now been posted on the governor's Web page, where anyone can cast their vote.
The U.S. Mint has final authority to alter the design for technical reasons such as coin balance, Starr said.
California Quarter
See the designs
Found in Laundry
Foot
Staff at a laundry washing hospital linen found a human foot, a Swedish newspaper said on Friday.
The foot, with painted toenails, was found on December 10 at a commercial laundry in Eskilstuna, west of Stockholm, which washed linen from several hospitals, Eskilstuna-Kuriren said on its Web site.
A local police officer told the newspaper police were waiting for a medical report on the foot and how it had been separated from the leg before deciding whether to open a criminal investigation.
Foot
Basic Cable Networks
Rankings
Rankings for the top 15 programs on basic cable networks as compiled by Nielsen Media Research for the week of Dec. 23-29. Each ratings point represents 1,067,000 households. Day and start time (EDT) are in parentheses.
1. NFL Football: Tampa Bay vs. Chicago (Sunday, 8:28 p.m.), ESPN, 5.5, 5.81 million homes.
2. Alamo Bowl: Colorado vs. Wisconsin (Saturday, 8 p.m.), ESPN, 3.6, 3.82 million homes.
3. Holiday Bowl: Kansas St. vs. Arizona St. (Friday, 8:03 p.m.), ESPN, 3.4, 3.65 million homes.
4. "NFL Prime Time" (Sunday, 7:30 p.m.), ESPN, 3.1, 3.32 million homes.
5. Independence Bowl: Nebraska vs. Mississippi (Friday, 4:32 p.m.), ESPN, 2.9, 3.12 million homes.
6. Insight.com Bowl: Pittsburgh vs. Oregon St. (Thursday, 8:30 p.m.), ESPN, 2.8, 2.98 million homes.
7. "WWE Raw Zone" (Monday, 10 p.m.), TNN, 2.8, 2.98 million homes.
8. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Tuesday, 8:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.7, 2.86 million homes.
9. Movie: "The Trophy Wife's Secret" (Sunday, 8 p.m.), Lifetime, 2.7, 2.84 million homes.
10. "Rugrats" (Tuesday, 9 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.6, 2.82 million homes.
11. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Monday, 5:30 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.5, 2.61 million homes.
12. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Sunday, 9:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.4, 2.59 million homes.
13. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 9 p.m.), TNN, 2.4, 2.56 million homes.
14. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Monday, 5 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.4, 2.55 million homes.
15. "Fairly Odd Parents" (Sunday, 10 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.4, 2.54 million homes.
Rankings
In Memory
Sydney Omarr
Sydney Omarr, the world's most widely read astrologer and a prognosticator to real life Hollywood stars, has died at age 76 from complications of pneumonia in Southern California, his ex-wife said on Friday.
Omarr died at St John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California on Thursday, surrounded by close friends and assistants who for years helped him put out his syndicated horoscope column. Omarr was hospitalized on Dec. 23 suffering from double pneumonia, his ex-wife, Jeraldine Saunders, said.
He had suffered since 1971 from multiple sclerosis, which left him blind and paralyzed, but had entertained as recently as two weeks before his hospitalization, Saunders said.
His hugely successful column, which ran seven days a week in 125 U.S. and foreign newspapers, will now be written by Saunders, said Walter Mahoney, vice president of domestic syndication for the Tribune Media Co. in Chicago.
Saunders, a former model and cruise director whose career was the basis for the popular TV series "Love Boat," also wrote a book called "Love Signs" that combines astrology and related arts, and has lectured extensively on the subject.
She was married briefly to Omarr in 1966 and remained one of his closest friends. She said the column would keep Omarr's name and continue to use his methods.
"I do everything just the way he does it because ... his column was so much more accurate than any others," Saunders told Reuters. "He would tie in numerology and palmistry and the kabbala."
Omarr told friends that he wanted to be remembered as the man who defended astrology, according to a rare interview he granted to the Los Angeles Times last month. As an astrologer, he had a devoted following that included former California Gov. Goodwin Knight, Mae West, Jennifer Jones, Angie Dickinson, Jayne Mansfield and a onetime actor named Ronald Reagan, for whom Omarr predicted great things.
In a column due to run Jan. 14, Omarr wrote that he wanted his epitaph to be "He was handsome and erudite. He enjoyed boxing and his star rose when he fought the good fight for astrology," Saunders said.
He told the Times he didn't understand how the positions of celestial bodies affected human affairs, just that they did.
"No one knows what gravity is either but we don't fear falling off the world," he said in the Dec. 13 interview. In addition to his column, Omarr wrote 13 books annually -- one on each of the 12 signs of the zodiac and one on the astrological year. His books have sold more than 50 million copies.
The man who would become the world's best known astrologer was born Sidney Kimmelman on Aug. 5, 1926, under the sign of Leo, son of a Philadelphia grocer and a housewife. He became fascinated with stargazing and magic in grade school, and by 15, began analyzing celebrity horoscopes for magazines and selling personalized horoscopes for $1 each.
The same year, he changed his name to test a numerological theory that the new moniker would add pizzazz to his life, he told the L.A. Times. He found his new surname in the film "Shanghai Gesture" starring Victor Mature as a character named Dr. Omar.
In 1943, he enlisted in a Army and was shipped to Okinawa as the U.S. military's first and only astrologer, predicting the outcomes of sporting events on a weekly radio show for the Armed Forces Network.
After the Army, he went to work for United Press and CBS radio as a news reporter, later giving up journalism to become a full-time columnist and astrology consultant.
His proudest moment, he told the Times, was a 1951 debate he had with astronomer Roy Marshall over the legitimacy of astrology. In the 1970s, his columns, books and celebrity studded parties had catapulted Omarr to fame, landing him on the couches of several talk show hosts, including Merv Griffin, Johnny Carson and Mike Douglas, as the resident stargazer.
He became paralyzed below the neck about 20 years ago and blind 15 years after that, but dictated his column and recorded daily horoscopes for his pay-per-use telephone horoscope service after planetary charts were read to him. "He never faltered for a word and he added drama to it," Saunders said.
She added that he was a typical Leo: very generous and always delighted to have an adoring crowd around him.
Sydney Omarr
Monarch Grove Sanctuary, Pacific Grove, CA
Monarch Butterfly
A Monarch butterfly clings to a flower at the Monarch Grove Sanctuary in Pacific Grove, Calif., Friday, Jan. 3, 2003. California's Monarch butterflies - whose appearance in winter is a celebrated show of color and beauty
that draws tourists from around the world - have dwindled in numbers this year, and may be in the midst of a longer-term decline.
Photo by Mike Fiala
'The Osbournes'
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Free Rolling Stones Concert In LA
Stop Global Warming
