Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Social Media Spoof Ads by Milwaukee Public Library
Employees' Most Outrageous 'Late' Excuses (Business News Daily)
Employee thought she had won the lottery (she hadn't). Employee's angry roommate cut the cord to his phone charger, so it didn't charge and his alarm didn't go off. Employee believed his commute time should count toward his work hours.
The true confessions of an Adrian Mole addict (Guardian)
Adrian Mole was a boy racked with adolescent angst, an Abba fan who still wore flares in the 80s. And 30 years ago 'The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾' became the defining book of Alexis Petridis's adolescence.
David Walliams: 'The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole was our bible' (Guardian)
In this extract from his foreward to the new edition of Sue Townsend's book, the comedian David Walliams pays tribute to the genius of her comic creation.
Jennifer Lewis: "Exposed: The Actors Inside Famous Costumes" (Flavorwire)
Have you ever wondered if the guy in the Chewbacca suit is just as hairy as the character he plays? Or if there's occasionally a person inside ALF? We certainly have, and usually we're too lazy to pause and consult the Internet. But not today, folks! Today we're solving the mystery of costumed characters once and for all - or at least for ten of film's and TV's favorite masked mortals. We've compiled some kids' characters, a couple sci-fi villains, and a handful of cuddly creatures paired with the suit actors within.
Roger Moore: "Belle had a ball: Paige O'Hara remembers 'Beauty and the Beast'" (McClatchy-Tribune News Service)
From the day it opened 20 years ago, Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" has been hailed as perhaps the greatest of the Disney animated classics, nominated for multiple Oscars, including best picture, upon its release in 1991.
Diego Stocco - Improv on a Trash Bin (Vimeo)
Sound Artist Diego Stocco is at the CES convention in Las Vegas. Sudden inspiration came from the resonant sound of a trash can, so he recorded this impromptu performance on his iPhone.
David Bruce: Wise Up! Prejudice (Athens News)
While Andre Previn was married to Mia Farrow, he belonged to the Garrick Club. One day, the club secretary invited him to bring Mia to dinner there, but added, "By the way, you must forgive me for this, but she can't use the main staircase. The women have to go round the back." This shocked Mr. Previn, and when he told his wife about the invitation - and about women not being allowed to use the main staircase - she replied, "You have 10 minutes in which to quit the club." Fortunately, he had the perfect reply: "I've already done it." Years later, Mr. Previn said, "Unbelievable. Mia was the wrong person to try that on."
David Bruce has 42 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $42 you can buy 10,500 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," "Maximum Cool," and "Resist Psychic Death."
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still sunny but cold.
It looks like the kid will be spending about $300 for books this semester. Whew.
After that $92 (used) paperback for the required history class last semester we expected worse.
Most Misinformed Viewers
Fox News
A new study from WorldPublicOpinion.org, a project within the University of Maryland, found that Fox News viewers were more likely to be misinformed on a number of domestic issues than other news consumers are.
"Those who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely than those who never watched it to believe that most economists estimate the stimulus caused job losses (12 points more likely), most economists have estimated the health care law will worsen the deficit (31 points), the economy is getting worse (26 points), most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring (30 points), the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts (14 points), their own income taxes have gone up (14 points), the auto bailout only occurred under Obama (13 points), when TARP came up for a vote most Republicans opposed it (12 points) and that it is not clear that Obama was born in the United States (31 points)."
On Wednesday, liberal watchdog group Media Matters released a leaked email from Fox News executive Bill Sammon urging the network's reporters and producers to include skepticism of scientific data on climate change. So maybe it's not too surprising that more Fox News viewers hold this view. However, Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch (R-Evil Incarnate) clearly thinks climate change is occurring, since News Corp. properties have undertaken a series of measure to reduce their own carbon footprints.
Fox News
Global Cultural Ambassador
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
In a move to engage young people worldwide, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has named Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as a global cultural ambassador.
The NBA Hall of Famer and all-time scoring leader will promote the importance of education, social and racial tolerance, cultural understanding and using sports as a means of empowerment.
"It's a great honor and I'm thrilled that they see me as the person that could get this done," he said in a phone interview.
The 64-year-old said he remembers a similar program under President John F. Kennedy where speakers came to his school in Harlem.
"So now I get to follow in the footsteps of one my heroes," he said.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
ABC News Interview
Marianne Gingrich
ABC News plans to air an interview with the second wife of Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich (R-Family Values) on "Nightline" just two days before the GOP's South Carolina primary.
Excerpts from the interview with Marianne Gingrich will be released during the day Thursday, ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said, ahead of both a Republican candidate debate Thursday evening in Charleston, S.C., and ABC's late-night news program.
ABC News has not indicated what Marianne Gingrich said in the interview. Her ex-husband has said that they don't have a relationship.
Marianne Gingrich has said Gingrich proposed to her before the divorce from his first wife was final in 1981; they were married six months later. Her marriage to Gingrich ended in divorce in 2000, and Gingrich has admitted he'd already taken up with Callista Bisek, a former congressional aide who would become his third wife. The speaker who pilloried President Bill Clinton for his affair with Monica Lewinsky was himself having an affair at the time.
Marianne Gingrich
LA-Bound
'8'
A star-studded group of A-listers will help George Clooney perform in the Los Angeles premiere of the gay marriage play "8."
The American Foundation for Equal Rights and Broadway Impact says Jamie Lee Curtis, Martin Sheen, Yeardley Smith, George Takei, Matt Bomer, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and several others will also perform.
The play is based on the trial transcript and interviews from 2010's court fight over California's gay marriage ban, Proposition 8. It will be performed as a reading at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre for one night only, March 3.
The play made its world premiere on Broadway last year starring Morgan Freeman, Anthony Edwards, John Lithgow and Cheyenne Jackson. More than 40 readings are scheduled in more than 17 states.
'8'
To Edit Le Huffington Post
Anne Sinclair
Anne Sinclair, the wife of disgraced former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, is to be editorial director of the French version of U.S. news and opinion website the Huffington Post.
"Le Huffington Post" will announce its launch at a news conference on Monday, hosted by co-founder Arianna Huffington and Sinclair, who gave up her job as a star television journalist when Strauss-Kahn became finance minister in 1997.
The 63-year-old heiress was voted France's most popular woman in a December poll for an online women's magazine, just beating the country's former finance minister, now IMF chief, Christine Lagarde and well ahead of first lady Carla Bruni.
Sinclair was a fixture of Sunday evening TV in the 1980s, drawing millions of viewers with her pithy interviews with top politicians and celebrities such as Madonna. She interviewed Strauss-Kahn as a junior minister.
Born in New York in 1948, Sinclair is the granddaughter of Paul Rosenberg, one of the most prominent art dealers of the 20th century, and daughter of Robert Schwartz, a Jewish resistance fighter during World War II.
Anne Sinclair
Hospital News
Merle Haggard
Country music great Merle Haggard has been admitted to a Georgia hospital suffering from pneumonia and postponed the rest of his concert dates in January, his spokeswoman said on Wednesday.
Haggard, 74, entered the Macon hospital on Tuesday night after he canceled a show in that Georgia city seven minutes before he was to take the stage because he was too ill to perform, said Frank Mull, his tour manager and close friend.
A member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, Haggard is best known for songs including "Mama Tried," "Okie from Muskogee" and "The Fightin' Side of Me."
The singer was unwell when he left his California home to begin the tour, but did not want to disappoint his fans, Mull said. "He thought he was well enough to work and he did work three dates, and he got progressively worse," Mull said.
Merle Haggard
Clears Up Vegas Case
Bruno Mars
Pop star Bruno Mars was cleared of a felony cocaine possession case on Wednesday, after his attorneys told a judge the Grammy-winning pop star stayed out of trouble and met other conditions of a plea deal.
Clark County District Court Judge Jessie Walsh dismissed the case against the 26-year-old singer-songwriter of hits including "Just The Way You Are" and "It Will Rain."
Mars, whose real name is Peter Gene Hernandez, didn't appear in person for the hearing in Las Vegas.
He pleaded guilty last February to cocaine possession, but the judge postponed accepting the plea. Mars didn't get formal probation, but the judge fined him $2,000 and ordered him to perform 200 hours of community service and eight hours of drug counseling.
He could have faced up to four years in state prison.
Bruno Mars
Hospital Records Back Naming Plan
Garth Brooks
Lawyers for country singer Garth Brooks told jurors Wednesday that a hospital's internal documents back his claim that a $500,000 donation was intended for a women's center to be named after his late mother.
Brooks wants the Integris Canadian Valley Regional Hospital in his hometown of Yukon to return the money, donated in 2005. He claims in a lawsuit that hospital administrators reneged on their pledge to name a part of a medical complex after Colleen Brooks.
The singer's lawyers said that, according to minutes recorded in an internal Integris document on the "history and status report of the Garth Brooks solicitation," hospital president James Moore negotiated naming rights with the Brooks family through Garth's father, Troyal Brooks, who also goes by Raymond.
But Moore testified Wednesday he wrote no such letter to Brooks' father and did not know why it was listed in the document. When pressed on whether he had struck a deal with the family, Moore said, "I categorically deny that."
Garth Brooks
Ex-Miss USA Appears In Court
Rima Fakih
Former Miss USA Rima Fakih has made an initial appearance in a Detroit-area courtroom in a drunken driving case.
A judge in the Detroit enclave of Highland Park on Wednesday set a March 14 trial date, but lawyers on both sides said they planned to talk in an attempt to resolve the case sooner.
After the hearing, Fakih told reporters she was sorry and her lawyer didn't want her to talk about the case.
Police say they found an open bottle of champagne on the floor behind the driver's seat when Fakih was stopped Dec. 3. She was accused of driving 60 mph in a 2011 Jaguar and weaving through traffic without using a signal.
Rima Fakih
Scientists Confirm Rocks
Mars
They came from Mars, not in peace, but in pieces.
Scientists are confirming that 15 pounds of rock collected recently in Morocco fell to Earth from Mars during a meteorite shower last July.
This is only the fifth time in history scientists have chemically confirmed Martian meteorites that people witnessed falling. The fireball was spotted in the sky six months ago, but the rocks weren't discovered on the ground in North Africa until the end of December.
This is an important and unique opportunity for scientists trying to learn about Mars' potential for life. So far, no NASA or Russian spacecraft has returned bits of Mars, so the only samples scientists can examine are those that come here in a meteorite shower.
The last time a Martian meteorite fell and was found fresh was in 1962. All the known Martian rocks on Earth add up to less than 240 pounds.
Mars
List of Martian Meteorites
Looking For Investor
Poland
Poland is looking for an investor to turn the "Wolf's Lair" of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler into a tourist attraction.
The ruins of Hitler's fortress complex deep in the woodlands of northeastern Poland is famed as the site of an assassination attempt on Hitler by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg and popularized by a 2008 film starring Tom Cruise.
The Wolf's Lair served as one of Hitler's military headquarters during World War Two and was destroyed by the Nazi forces as they retreated in early 1945.
The site -- whose name refers to Hitler's nickname, "Mr. Wolf" -- consisted of 80 buildings at its peak and is owned by the local forestry authority.
Poland
Oldest-Known Discovered
Astrologer's Board
A research team has discovered what may be the oldest astrologer's board, engraved with zodiac signs and used to determine a person's horoscope.
Dating back more than 2,000 years, the board was discovered in Croatia, in a cave overlooking the Adriatic Sea. The surviving portion of the board consists of 30 ivory fragments engraved with signs of the zodiac. Researchers spent years digging them up and putting them back together. Inscribed in a Greco-Roman style, they include images of Cancer, Gemini and Pisces.
The board fragments were discovered next to a phallic-shaped stalagmite amid thousands of pieces of ancient Hellenistic (Greek style) drinking vessels.
The phallic-shaped stalagmite, which may have grown on the spot naturally, appears to have been a center for these offerings and for rituals performed in the cavern. Forenbaher cautioned that all stalagmites look phallic to some degree and it's difficult to determine what meaning it had to the people in the cave. "It certainly meant something important," he said.
Astrologer's Board
Prime-Time Nielsens
Ratings
Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for Jan.9-15. Listings include week's ranking and viewership.
1. AFC Divisional Playoff: Denver at New England, CBS, 34.2 million.
2. Fox NFC Playoff: NY Giants at Green Bay, 23.8 million.
3. "NCIS," CBS, 21 million.
4. Golden Globe Awards, NBC, 16.8 million.
5. "NCIS: Los Angeles," CBS, 16.6 million.
6. "The Big Bang Theory," CBS, 16.1 million.
7. "Person of Interest," CBS, 14.9 million.
8. "The Mentalist," CBS, 13.6 million.
9. "Rob," CBS, 13.5 million.
10. "Modern Family," ABC, 12.12
11. "Blue Bloods," CBS, 12.1 million.
12. "Undercover Boss," CBS, 11.6 million.
13. "Simpsons," Fox, 11.5 million.
14. "Unforgettable," CBS, 11.2 million.
15. "Grey's Anatomy," ABC, 10.7 million.
16. "CSI: NY," CBS, 10.6 million.
17. Fox NFC Playoff-Post Game, 10.1 million.
18. "Once Upon a Time," ABC, 9.8 million.
19. "Castle," ABC, 9.76 million.
20. "The Good Wife," CBS, 9.5 million.
Ratings
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