Recommended Reading
from Bruce
AI vs. AI: Two Chatbots Talking to Each Other
Cornell Creative Machines Lab connected two chatbots to each other to see what would happen. You could call this a conversation, and however odd it is, it honestly makes more sense than some chats I've heard between real people.
Evan V. Symon: The 5 Biggest Disasters in the History of Marketing Ideas (Cracked)
Remember that Simpsons episode where Krusty Burger ran a huge promotion for the 1984 Olympics promising they'd give away burgers for every medal the Americans won? Krusty got steadily more enraged as the U.S. won event after event ("I will personally spit in every 50th burger!"). Well, that totally happened.
Mark Morford: You smell like the devil's gumdrops (SF Gate)
Needless to say, I loved her madly. But that's not what I remember most. What I remember most, of course, is her smell.
Andrew Tobias: "The Divide - II"
"I have to tell you something. Feel free to use it as you like, or not, in your blog. Every time I read or hear some version of 'I made my money, I worked hard, I deserve to keep it...those poor people are poor because they don't work hard...if they knuckled down they'd be rich, too...' and the implication that the poor are nothing more than backdrop to these rich people's lives and are completely unimportant, I am astounded. …" - Sarah Johnson
Froma Harrop: Steve Jobs Told Us What We Wanted (Creators Syndicate)
Steve Jobs didn't make his billions shorting stocks, feeding off the taxpayers or simply being around when a rich relative died. The college dropout from California mixed technology with popular culture and brilliant marketing to make handsome products that I and millions others didn't know we wanted - but had to have. I've bought enough of them to gild at least one bathroom fixture on Jobs' estate. Steve, it was my pleasure.
Sam Leith: "This is Dora the Explorer. Kids go mad for her. She may well be the future of art" (Guardian)
Is this a show designed to appeal to children whose first language is videogames - or the other way round, priming toddlers for Xbox?
Gillian Wearing: A nose for the truth (Guardian)
People open up to Gillian Wearing. So the artist made a feature film in which members of the public divulge their innermost secrets - with shocking results. Kira Cochrane meets her.
My TV hero: Daniel Roche on Seth MacFarlane (Guardian)
I can't get to sleep without watching 'Family Guy.'
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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answered:
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Comment
Re: Bill-O
Marty,
I've been thinking about the current marital problems suffered by "The Frank Burns of News" - Bill-O, and here's what I think will happen to him.
The currently-separated Mrs. O'Reilly will file for divorce against Bill-O. He will try to offer some cash to salve her wounds, but she will say, "Screw Off! I'm telling it all - in court!"
During the trial, the evidence will show that Bill-O may be an alcoholic, with emotional problems, and is somewhat abusive - physically. He will try to show his side of the story, which will most likely be trumped up, but the judge will literally clean Bill's clock, and find in favor of the soon-to-be-ex wife, awarding her heavy cash.
Write this down, and take it to the bank - when Bill-O begins losing his money, as well as his woman, he will either A) drink himself to death, or B) take his heater and blow his brains out.
This is what I think will happen to the "Frank Burns of News" - so we had better be ready for it.
George M
Thanks, George!
Reader Suggestion
Deadheads
Hi Marty,
In case you haven't seen this news story yet, there are apparently a lot of
Deadheads out there with beaucoup bucks and a lot of time on their hands in
which to listen their favorite music!
Here is a link to a story about it from the front page of our local paper:
[I love that their boxed set is called "Europe '72". We can relate to that,
can't we?]
Also on today's front page was a story about the Marin County sheriff's
office seizing 500 marijuana plants on property in the western, more rural,
area of Marin County. Interesting to see those two articles on the same
front page!
Hope this finds you well.
Barbara HA
Thanks, Barb!
That's too funny!
Kinda makes me think of that tribute to 'Further', "Urge". ; )
(Barbara was my roommate at Pepperdine - both in LA and Heidelberg.)
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Another unseasonal marine layer. : )
ABC Airing New Interviews
Jackie Kennedy
An ABC special with never-before-heard interviews with Jacqueline Kennedy will air Sept. 13.
Viewers will hear the former first lady speak with historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. about life in the White House and with her husband, President John F. Kennedy. The recordings were made months after the president's 1963 assassination and sealed until now.
Originally planned for one hour, the special will now fill two hours in prime time and feature Diane Sawyer's interview with the couple's daughter, Caroline Kennedy.
The ABC special is timed to coincide with the publication of a book about the interviews. The release is also timed to the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy administration.
Jackie Kennedy
Gallery Finds
Otto Dix
A gallery has discovered four paintings by Otto Dix, the German expressionist whose art chronicled the horrors of World War One, the depravity of the Weimar Republic and was labeled "degenerate" by Adolf Hitler.
Famous for works critical of the darker side of German society in the 1920s, Dix's paintings were discovered among the belongings of his wife, gallery owner Herbert Remmert told Reuters Wednesday.
The paintings were found in a portfolio untouched for decades on an estate in Bavaria owned by the ancestors of a Duesseldorf doctor and art collector who remained close to Dix even after his wife left him for the artist.
The three watercolors and one painting-study date from the first two years Dix spent in Duesseldorf from 1922-1925.
Otto Dix
Hollywood Walk O' Fame Star
Ed O'Neill
Ed O'Neill's new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame would seem to be in an appropriate spot: in front of a DSW shoe store on Hollywood Boulevard.
O'Neill used to play shoe salesman Al Bundy on the long-running sitcom "Married With Children."
The Walk of Fame says the Emmy-nominated star of "Modern Family" will receive his sidewalk honor on Tuesday. The ceremony will feature his two TV wives, Sofia Vergara from "Modern," the current ABC hit, and Katey Sagal from "Married," which aired on Fox.
The 65-year-old O'Neill recently told The Vindicator, his hometown newspaper in Youngstown, Ohio, that he almost turned down the Walk of Fame star because he thought it was "kind of weird." But his daughter helped him see it was a point of pride.
Ed O'Neill
Baby News
Milo Thomas Bugliari
Alyssa Milano is a mom.
A publicist for the 38-year-old actress says Milano gave birth to a baby boy Wednesday morning: Milo Thomas Bugliari.
This is the first child for Milano and her husband, David Bugliari, who wed in August 2009.
Milano starred in TV's "Who's the Boss?" and "Charmed" and can next be seen on screen in the ensemble comedy "New Year's Eve." Bugliari is an agent with Creative Artists Agency.
Milo Thomas Bugliari
Gets Off Cheap
Mel "Sugar Tits" Gibson
Mel "Sugar Tits" Gibson will pay $750,000 to his ex-girlfriend and continue to provide housing and financial support for their young daughter to resolve a bitter legal fight that followed sexist, racist rants attributed to the actor.
The settlement disclosed Wednesday is intended to end the bickering and accusations that have permeated the case handled in mostly secret proceedings for more than a year, Judge Peter Lichtman said.
Gibson's payments to Russian musician Oksana Grigorieva are dependent on a lasting truce.
As part of the agreement, their daughter will receive support equal to what the actor-director provides for his other seven children. The former couple will split custody of the girl, who turns 2 in late October.
In addition, Gibson will keep paying for a multimillion house he purchased for Grigorieva and their daughter. The house will be sold when the girl turns 18 and she will receive the proceeds.
Mel "Sugar Tits" Gibson
Stunt Double Sues
"The Hangover Part 2"
A stunt double who worked on the set of "The Hangover Part 2" is suing Warner Brothers, claiming that he incurred brain damage while filming the comedy -- and no, it wasn't incurred from drinking massive amounts of booze.
In a lawsuit filed in California's Central District Court, Scott McLean, who served as Ed Helms' stunt double in the hit Todd Phillips-directed sequel, claims that he was seriously injured while performing a stunt for the film in December 2010 in Thailand.
McLean, who was riding as a passenger in a car during the stunt, claims that, while the stunt was in progress, the timing sequence was abruptly changed, and the speed of McLean's vehicle was increased "significantly to a speed unsafe for the stunt, thus resulting in a major collision" with an oncoming vehicle.
As a result of the crash, the suit claims, McLean "suffered serious brain and other physical injuries, and was in a medically induced coma for almost two months."
According to the suit, the stunt man, who was airlifted from Thailand to an Australian rehab facility where she still resides, sustained injuries that include "likely permanent brain and physical injuries."
"The Hangover Part 2"
"Rock Bottom"
Oscar De La Hoya
Former boxing champ and Olympic gold medalist Oscar De La Hoya says he is battling addictions to cocaine and alcohol and seeking to rebuild his relationship with his wife after being unfaithful.
De La Hoya, in his first interview since leaving a Malibu rehabilitation clinic, told the Spanish-language network Univision in an interview broadcast on Tuesday that his life was "a big mess."
The 38 year-old former boxer, who won a gold medal in the 1992 Olympic games in Barcelona, said that he thought about committing suicide, but does not "have the courage" to take his own life.
De La Hoya, a Mexican-American fighter with matinee idol good looks, said that he has been sober for three months.
Oscar De La Hoya
Last night Oscar De La Hoya appeared on Aqui y Ahora, a the Latino
20/20 of sorts, and talked about his has-been boxing career and
everything that came with it: drinking, drugs, women, and dressing up
as women. Whoa, what? Yes, the leaked, supposedly "fake" pictures of
Oscar dressed up as a transvestite hooker are real. Hear it straight
from the horse's mouth by following the link below:
- Guanabee - Oscar De La Hoya, Aqui y Ahora
Council Amends Ruling
Dire Straits
Canada's broadcast standards council Wednesday amended an earlier ruling that deemed Dire Straits' 1985 hit "Money for Nothing" unfit for radio, saying that while the homophobic slur used in the song is inappropriate, it must be taken in context.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission had asked for a review of the song after the standards council ruled in January that the British band's song was unfit for radio because its lyrics include three instances of the offensive anti-gay slur "faggot". The council had responded to a complaint from a radio listener.
The January ruling created a public backlash, especially since the song first was released on the band's best-selling "Brothers in Arms" album and had been widely sold and listened to in Canada in the two-and-a-half decades since its release.
The council released its review decision Wednesday, saying the majority of the council's panel felt the song used the word satirically and not in a hateful manner.
Dire Straits
Paid More To CEOs Than Taxes
U.S. Firms
Twenty-five of the 100 highest paid U.S. CEOs earned more last year than their companies paid in federal income tax, a pay study by a Washington think tank said on Wednesday.
At a time when lawmakers are facing tough choices in a quest to slash the national debt, the Institute for Policy Studies, a left-leaning group, said it also found many of the companies spent more on lobbying than they did on taxes.
The senior Democrat on the House of Representatives oversight committee, Elijah Cummings, called for hearings on executive compensation "to examine the extent to which the problems in CEO compensation that led to the economic crisis continue to exist today."
The institute compared CEO pay to current U.S. taxes paid, excluding foreign and state and local taxes that may have been paid, as well as deferred taxes which can often be far larger than current taxes paid.
U.S. Firms
Ex.-House Speaker Pleads Guilty
Pennsylvania
The onetime speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives pleaded guilty Wednesday to eight criminal charges stemming from a public corruption investigation, making him the highest-ranking state politician to be convicted in the four-and-a-half-year inquiry.
Ex-Rep. John M. Perzel entered the plea to two counts of conflict of interest, two counts of theft and four counts of conspiracy. He left the courthouse without commenting, but apologized in an e-mailed statement and said he bore responsibility for improprieties in spending public funds he controlled.
"It was up to me to see that taxpayer funds were spent only for the betterment of the people of Pennsylvania, and not for my political benefit (or) that of my party," Perzel said in the news release.
Prosecutors have described Perzel, 61, as being at the center of a scheme to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on computer technology for the benefit of GOP political campaigns.
Pennsylvania
Unit That NYPD Says Doesn't Exist
The Demographics Unit
Working with the CIA, the New York Police Department maintained a list of "ancestries of interest" and dispatched undercover officers to monitor Muslim businesses and social groups, according to new documents that offer a rare glimpse inside an intelligence program the NYPD insists doesn't exist.
The documents add new details to an Associated Press investigation that explained how undercover NYPD officers singled out Muslim communities for surveillance and infiltration.
The Demographics Unit, a squad of 16 officers fluent in a total of at least five languages, was told to map ethnic communities in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut and identify where people socialize, shop and pray.
Once that analysis was complete, according to documents obtained by the AP, the NYPD would "deploy officers in civilian clothes throughout the ethnic communities."
The architect of this and other programs was a veteran CIA officer who oversaw the program while working with the NYPD on the CIA payroll. It was an unusual arrangement for the CIA, which is prohibited from spying inside the U.S.
The Demographics Unit
Pulls iApps From Apple Store
Financial Times
The Financial Times has pulled its iPad and iPhone apps from Apple's App Store after losing a battle to keep control of customer data obtained through subscriptions.
Apple has recently begun to insist that subscriptions to apps that it hosts must go through its own store, giving Apple ownership of valuable data about customers from those transactions, as well as a 30 percent cut of revenues.
The Pearson-owned FT and Apple had been in negotiations for months but ultimately failed to reach a compromise, an FT spokesman said Wednesday.
The iPad tablet computer, launched a year and a half ago, created a new market popular with affluent professionals and has been a major driver of new subscriptions to FT.com, which now accounts for about a quarter of the FT's total sales.
Financial Times
Swaziland
Reed Dance
Swaziland's annual "Reed Dance", a ceremony which is meant to be a traditional show of virginity by thousands of maidens, is acquiring a seedier reputation for events off stage.
Around 60,000 bare-breasted girls from across the landlocked kingdom, some as young as 10 years old, were presenting reeds they had cut from surrounding hills to the royal kraal on Monday while they danced before King Mswati III.
Mswati, Africa's last monarch who already has 13 wives, has often used the ceremony to choose a new spouse.
But the presence of tens of thousands of teenage girls, far from parental supervision and with plenty of free time on their hands, has also proven a magnet for men who have anything but marriage on their mind.
The southern African kingdom, where life expectancy is just 49, has the world's highest HIV prevalence rate.
Reed Dance
Another Foot Washes Ashore
British Columbia
Police in Vancouver, British Columbia, say a human foot inside a running shoe has washed ashore, the latest in roughly a dozen such cases since 2007.
Police say the foot and leg bone were seen late Tuesday afternoon floating along the shore of Vancouver's False Creek.
In the past four years, about a dozen feet encased in shoes have washed up on beaches near Vancouver, along the southern Georgia Strait and off Washington state.
Most of the remains are unidentified, although investigators said at least two of the feet belong to men who were reported missing.
British Columbia
Cable Nielsens
Ratings
Rankings for the top 15 programs on cable networks as compiled by Nielsen for the week of Aug. 22-28. Day and start time (EDT) are in parentheses:
1. "2011 Video Music Awards (Sunday, 9 p.m.), MTV, 8 million homes, 12.44 million viewers.
2. "Jersey Shore" (Thursday, 10 p.m.), MTV, 6.21 million homes, 8.47 million viewers.
3. "Jersey Shore" (Sunday, 7 p.m.), MTV, 5.64 million homes, 8.02 million viewers.
4. "2011 VMA Pre-Show" (Sunday, 8 p.m.), MTV, 4.98 million homes, 7.32 million viewers.
5. "The Closer" (Monday, 9 p.m.), TNT, 4.87 million homes, 6.57 million viewers.
6. "Rizzoli & Isles" (Monday, 10 p.m.), TNT, 4.79 million homes, 6.27 million viewers.
7. NFL Exhibition Football: Chicago vs. N.Y. Giants (Monday, 8 p.m.), ESPN, 4.45 million homes, 5.85 million viewers.
8. "Royal Pains" (Wednesday, 9 p.m.), USA, 4.17 million homes, 5.52 million viewers.
9. "I Just Want My Pants Back" (Sunday, 11:27 p.m.), MTV, 3.59 million homes, 5.13 million viewers.
10. NFL Exhibition Football: Washington vs. Baltimore (Thursday, 8 p.m.), ESPN, 3.52 million homes, 4.61 million viewers.
11. "Burn Notice" (Thursday, 9 p.m.), USA, 3.45 million homes, 4.57 million viewers.
12. "True Blood" (Sunday, 9:04 p.m.), HBO, 3.4 million homes, 5.31 million viewers.
13. "Necessary Roughness" (Wednesday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.19 million homes, 4.18 million viewers.
14. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.023 million homes, 4.66 million viewers.
15. "Suits" (Thursday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.022 million homes, 3.81 million viewers.
Ratings
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