'TBH Politoons'
Jazz From Hills
Trimmed Bush and Hedges
Weekly Link
Humor Gazette
Memo: U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Secretary Tom Ridge, in consultation with the nation's top astrological experts,
today issued the following Risk Assessment Horoscope:
Recommended Readings
United Church of Christ Vs Big Media
The CBS and NBC Networks have refused to run an ad by a liberal church promoting the acceptance of people regardless of sexual orientation because the networks believe the ad is advocacy advertising.
The 30-second spot, run by the United Church of Christ, features two muscle-bound bouncers standing outside a church, selecting people who could attend service and those who could not. Among those kept out are two males who appear to be a couple. Written text then appears saying, in part, "Jesus didn't turn people away, neither do we."
"Because this commercial touches on the exclusion of gay couples...and the fact that the executive branch has recently proposed a Constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable for broadcast," the church quoted CBS as saying.
A CBS spokesman confirmed that the ad was banned, but would not comment directly about the above statement.
Fun Site
Escher in LEGOs
More Recommended Readings
from Bruce
Reader Comment
Re: americanwomensuck.com
Surely that doesn't include his cousins and/or sisters!
Or do they suck in a different way?
Terry C
NJ
Thanks, Terry!
Maybe we can drop a note to Auntie Sissie & ask.
Fun Links
Jefferson Airplane
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still sunny by day, clear & cold by night.
The barf-fairies visited the kid most of last night.
Not my favorite reason for being up to see the sun rise.
Concert For Darfur
London
Stars from round the world will sing next week in London's Royal Albert Hall at a UN concert to raise vital funds for starving refugees in Sudan's western Darfur region.
The singers, including Simply Red's Mick Hucknall, Pretender Chrissie Hynde, Greek tenor Mario Frangoulis and disco star Jocelyn Brown, will perform the songs of Cole Porter accompanied by the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra.
The concert, organized by the UNHCR, is being staged to help displaced people in a region the size of France, which the U.N. has described as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
More than 1.6 million people have been driven from their homes in Darfur by violence, which pits rebels against government forces and Arab militias, the latter accused of widespread human rights violations.
London
Musicares Person Of 2005
Brian Wilson
Beach Boys' mastermind and musical legend Brian Wilson will be honoured by the organisers of music's highest awards, the Grammys, as their Musicares person of 2005, they said.
Wilson, 62, who shot to worldwide fame in the early 1960s as his catchy lyrics transformed pop music and made the Beach Boys a household name, will receive the prestigious annual humanitarian award at a special gala on February 11.
The award, which recognises Wilson's accomplishments as a musician and humanitarian for his charity work, will be bestowed two days before the 47th annual Grammy awards next year.
This year's Grammys will be held in Los Angeles Staples Center on February 13.
Brian Wilson
Cast Marks Anniversary
'Mary Poppins'
Complete with dancing penguins and chim-chim chimney sweeps, this premiere was practically perfect in every way. Many of the surviving stars of "Mary Poppins" reunited at Hollywood Boulevard's El Capitan Theatre to mark the beloved Walt Disney movie musical's 40th anniversary.
Talk about deja vu: On Aug. 27, 1964, the film's headliners, Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke, could be found almost directly across the street, at the legendary Grauman's Chinese Theatre, attending the film's world premiere.
Tuesday night's "re-premiere," as distributor Disney dubbed it, both celebrated the film's anniversary and promoted its upcoming re-release on DVD.
Costar Glynis Johns, who played Mrs. Banks, made her way down the red carpet in a wheelchair.
"It's all very weird," observed the 81-year-old actress, 81. "It doesn't feel like 40 years, it feels like four."
'Mary Poppins'
Donates $100,000 to CSULB
George Lucas
"Star Wars" creator George Lucas donated $100,000 to California State University, Long Beach, for film department scholarships and equipment.
Lucas donated the money at the request of the Department of Film and Electronic Arts. Although Lucas attended the University of Southern California, director Steven Spielberg, his close friend, went to Cal State Long Beach.
The university needed the money to fix or repair equipment damaged by an October storm. A satellite dish on the department's building fell through the roof during the storm, allowing water to seep into the building.
George Lucas
Restored Plath Manuscript Gets Reading
'Ariel: The Restored Edition'
British painter and writer Frieda Hughes was 35 before she was able to even glance at the poetry of her mother, Sylvia Plath, whose painfully sharp images and tumultuous life have captivated readers for decades.
But now, having flown from Wales for the occasion, Hughes sat calmly for more than two hours Tuesday evening as six authors read "Ariel: The Restored Edition." It was the first time that the restored manuscript had ever been publicly read in its entirety.
The 40 ferocious poems were written around the time of the disintegration of Plath's marriage to British poet Ted Hughes, and not long before her suicide in London on Feb. 11, 1963.
Poets Frank Bidart, Jorie Graham, Kimiko Hahn, Richard Howard and Katha Pollitt, and literary critic Helen Vendler took turns reading the poems at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Hughes read the first and last poems and Plath, restored to life in a recording, read the title poem.
For the rest, 'Ariel: The Restored Edition'
To Retire After 40-City Tour
Luciano Pavarotti
Luciano Pavarotti, whose effortless tenor voice and powerful stage presence dominated opera for decades, plans to bow out like a superstar with a 40-city tour that will end with his retirement.
In an interview with Reuters, the singer who started in a church choir at the age of five and became known as "The king of the high C's," said he will bring down the curtain on a 43-year career with an international tour taking him from the Balkans to Buenos Aires via London, Paris and New York.
When pressed, Pavarotti cannot put a date on when the tour will end or where. "I don't know. When they are finished, I am finished."
Luciano Pavarotti
Shift Times, Run Longer Shows
TV Networks
Television networks are lending new meaning to time-shifting: TV shows don't necessarily start or end right on the hour or half-hour anymore, screwing up some viewers' video recordings.
More programs are running an extra minute or two longer to keep viewers from switching channels. Shows recently padded include CBS's "Without a Trace," Fox's "Renovate My Family," ABC's "The Bachelor" and NBC's "ER," according to Nielsen Media Research.
As a result of the overruns, people who use VCRs and digital video recorders like TiVos end up clipping the beginning or ending of a show. For some, the time conflict could also prevent a later show from being recorded.
TV Networks
Jan. 2005: Updated Primetime Schedule
Faux
In a schedule populated with two new dramas, and the return of American Idol, The Simple Life and 24, what follows is Fox in January 2005:
Monday
8:00 p.m. Trading Spouses
9:00 p.m. 24 (2-hour season premiere on Sunday, Jan. 9; time period premiere on Monday, Jan. 10)
Tuesday
8:00 p.m. American Idol (season premiere Jan. 18)
9:00 p.m. House
Wednesday
8:00 p.m. That '70s Show
8:30 p.m. The Simple Life 3: Interns (season premiere Jan. 26)
9:00 p.m. American Idol (season premiere Jan. 19)
Thursday
8:00 p.m. The O.C.
9:00 p.m. Point Pleasant (series premiere Jan. 20)
Friday
8:00 p.m. The Bernie Mac Show (new day and time)
8:30 p.m. The Bernie Mac Show (repeat)
9:00 p.m. Jonny Zero (series premiere Jan. 14)
Saturday
8:00 p.m. Cops
9:00 p.m. America's Most Wanted
Sunday
7:00 p.m. King of the Hill
7:30 p.m. Malcolm in the Middle
8:00 p.m. The Simpsons
8:30 p.m. Arrested Development
9:00 p.m. My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss
Faux
Stapler Leads Auction at $1K
Paris Hilton
$1000 for a stapler? No, it's not holiday shopping madness, but an online auction for a Paris Hilton autographed stapler.
Office retailer Staples is holding a "Staplers of the Stars" online charity auction of celebrity signed staplers. With more than 140 celebs in the mix, Hilton's stapler is currently leading the pack at $1,005.
Hilton is followed by Donald Trump and Katie Couric, whose autographed staplers are each going for $800. Other staplers being bid on are signed by Ringo Starr, Kobe Bryant, Bill Gates, Rudy Guiliani and Cher.
All of the proceeds go to a charity of each star's choosing. Since the auction opened on Nov. 16, more than 2,600 bids have been placed. The staplers are available to bid on until Dec. 6 at
www.staples.com.
Paris Hilton
Inflatables Disappear From Burger Kings
SpongeBob SquarePants
Evil Plankton is the obvious suspect, but landlubbers are more likely to blame for a nationwide rash of thefts of 9-foot-tall and 9-foot-wide SpongeBob SquarePants inflatables propped on the roofs of Burger King restaurants.
More than 50 SpongeBob-nappings have been reported from Florida to Utah since the pop icon started appearing on fast-food restaurant rooftops in a promotional tie-in with his movie Nov. 11. Employees at a Burger King near Palatka are among the latest to report the theft of the $500 balloon last weekend.
As part of the promotion, 4,704 inflatable SpongeBobs weighing 50 pounds were ordered for restaurants nationwide, said a Burger King spokesman, who did not want to be identified. The animated movie and TV star is featured on Burger King children's meals, watches and toys.
SpongeBob SquarePants
Opens in Philly
Cereality Cereal Bar & Cafe
How's this for thinking outside the box: a cafe with jammies-clad servers pouring cereal day and night, topping it off with everything from fruit to malted milk balls, and serving it in "bowls" resembling Chinese takeout containers. It's all cereal. Seriously.
Cereality Cereal Bar & Cafe, which opened its first sit-down cafe Wednesday on the University of Pennsylvania campus, is a sugarcoated - and tongue-in-cheek - homage to what your mother always told you was the most important meal of the day. But she probably never dished out bowls of Froot Loops and Cap'n Crunch topped with Pop Rocks.
Behind glass-door kitchen-style cabinets at Cereality are 30 varieties of brand-name cold cereal. Customers order from "cereologists," whose most popular mix is two 8-ounce scoops with one of 36 toppings, plus regular, flavored or soy milk for $2.95. Also offered are cereal bars and made-to-order cereal smoothies and yogurt blends.
Cereality Cereal Bar & Cafe
Cereality
Photo Sells for $85,000 at Auction
Abraham Lincoln
A unique portrait of Abraham Lincoln sold for a record $85,000 and a copy of Robert E. Lee's farewell address to his troops went for $70,000 at an auction of manuscripts and other historical items.
The buyers at the Nov. 23 Bonhams & Butterfields auction were private and their identities were not disclosed.
The 16-inch-by-19-inch Lincoln portrait, taken by Alexander Gardner on Aug. 9, 1863, is the only one known that shows the former president sitting in a chair with his head posed on his hand. In most photographs, his hands are crossed or placed stiffly on the chair arms, said Catherine Williamson, director of books and manuscripts for the auction house.
Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln photo
Philanderer Returns to Wall Street as Banker
Rudy Giuliani
Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who made headlines in the 1980s prosecuting Wall Street financiers, now plans to join the club and build an investment advisory practice.
Giuliani's consulting firm on Wednesday said it purchased accounting firm Ernst & Young's (ERNY.UL) investment banking practice for an undisclosed price.
The new investment bank, Giuliani Capital Advisors LLC, will advise companies on deals such as acquisitions and restructurings.
Rudy Giuliani
Most Recognized Works Of Art
Marcel Duchamp's 'Fountain'
They are two of the most recognized works of art in the world, and they have lost out to an autographed toilet.
Pablo Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" and "Guernica" came second and fourth respectively in a poll of what 500 leading art world figures regarded as the five most influential works of modern art in the world.
They were beaten to the top spot by Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain," a tilted and signed white urinal which he offered to a shocked art world in 1917.
Third place in the survey by Turner Prize sponsor and gin manufacturer Gordon's went to Andy Warhol's "Marilyn Diptych," with Henri Matisse's "The Red Studio" in fifth place.
Marcel Duchamp's 'Fountain'
Condom Conundrum
Germans
Most German men wear condoms of the wrong size, a condom distributor has said, after asking more than 2,500 men to measure their erect penis.
"People measure their feet when they buy shoes. Why shouldn't they measure their penises? A man would not wear children's shoes," said Jan Vinzenz Krause of Vinico, which released the study's findings on World AIDS Day.
Most condom boxes in Germany indicated size but men, due to embarrassment or vanity, rarely checked or just bought those marked "extra large", he said on Wednesday.
When compared with the condoms normally used by the participants, the results showed only 18 percent wore the right size, with nearly half squeezing into condoms that were too small and 34 percent trying to use those that were too big.
For more numbers & factoids - Germans
