Celebration III pics coming later this evening

I know, they've been promised the last several days but we didn't get Lisa's photos back until yesterday afternoon, and she took 'em with her this morning to show her students before I had a chance to scan some. I'll get to work on that when she returns this evening.

On a related note, call it the "Vader Virus" or "Imperial Influenza" but lots of people who attended the festivities have gotten sick since coming back from Indianapolis. I've been under the weather with some nasty crap myself ever since Monday (we got back very late Sunday night). It's probably weather-related: we went from first-day warm and sunny, to cold and rain Friday and then snow Saturday afternoon and night. Then again with THAT many people from all over the world in one area, with those kinds of conditions, there ain't no telling what hellish microbes might have been bred across four days. Hey who knows, maybe Star Wars Celebration III will forever emblazon a new illness like Legionnaire's disease did. How about "the Sidious Syndrome"?

Read More

Well, tonight pretty much proved that the man is insane...

"Teachers tell me they love No Child Left Behind."

?!?!?!?!?!?????

Okay Mister President: if you can find any teachers that do think that No Child Left Behind is a boon to their efforts, I'll eat my hat.

Read More

"It's not 'intrusive government' when WE do it."

I remember about ten years ago or so when President Clinton was pushing for the "V-chip" to be installed in all newly manufactured television sets. People like Rush Limbaugh, Donald Wildmon and American Spectator magazine called it for what it was: government sticking its nose into something it had no business being in at all.

My, how the times have changed.

I said this then and I'll say this now: there already IS something controlling what children watch on television and the movies... and they're called parents!! And Mom and Dad together should be an adequate enough gatekeeper against what they will deem as objectionable without any help from the federal government. Or either the Democrats or Republicans.

Yes, I'm aware that this bill doesn't mandate any new technology like what Clinton did in pushing the V-chip. But the mindset is the same: that the American people are inherently incapable of taking care of themselves, so they need "authority figures" in government to be asserted over them for their own good.

Screw 'em.

Read More

"Must Flee Tee Vee": Exorcism on NBC tonight!!

Okay, so NBC's Dateline is going to broadcast a real exorcism tonight. Along with a segment on snake-handlers.

For their own reasons, I'm finding both of these items to be hysterically funny.

Parse that as you will...

Read More

"...And not a rubber nipple in sight!" New trailer for Batman Begins online, sorta...

STILL working on photos from Celebration III to post online! Didn't know I took this many and we've still got Lisa's to look forward to once they're back from the photo lab. That should be this afternoon so I'll probably just wait 'til later tonight to get them ALL up.

In the meantime, orient yer peepers at the new Batman Begins trailer at MTV.com. It's a pretty wonky setup to get it to play though: I had to use Internet Explorer instead of Mozilla because of something it does with Microsoft Media Player, and hopefully there'll be a MUCH better Quicktime version out soon. But it's still plenty to get me stoked: Batman Begins is on the VERY short list of movies that I'm looking forward to seeing this summer (the others being Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The War of the Worlds and some little art-house film that George Lucas is supposed to be releasing sometime next month). Looking at this trailer and the others before it makes me darned thankful that I wasn't one of the poor saps walking around wearing a Batman t-shirt back in 1989 when Tim Burton's movie was out. Which I like Tim Burton but his take on Batman... never quite resonated with me. This Gotham City looks and feels real, like someone really could put on a bat costume and with enough military toys would be perfectly believable. Check out the Scarecrow: LOVE it how he's got a simple burlap sack for a mask! No kitschy cartoonyism here kids. No extreme close-ups of molded-rubber crotches or nipples either: looks like someone kept Joel Schumacher a good cattle-prod's distance from this movie. Anyway, go watch it and enjoy a minute or so of madness and mayhem.

Read More

Is repeating video evidence that Idol is rigged?

Over at Drudge Report right now there's a story about an investigative piece ABC is set to run next week alleging that the producers of American Idol on Fox are manipulating the outcome of the show. This hasn't been the first time this season it's been suggested that "the fix is in" on the number-one television show in America, but so far this is the only major media attention given the matter.

I'm not saying that American Idol is rigged. I'm praying it's not. Hoping that there are some ethical standards being adhered to and that EVERYONE is being given their fair shake at going all the way.

That said, there was something on tonight's broadcast of American Idol that I happened to catch, that has been bugging me all night.

The show's now down to six finalists, the theme this evening was songs that have come out since the year 2000. Before each contestant sang there was a brief set of video clips about that performer: where he or she comes from, comments from family and friends, their singing history, etc. The first contestant to perform tonight was Carrie Underwood, the 22-year old farmgirl from Oklahoma and one of the admitted favorites - if not the admitted favorite - to win the competition.

Now, here's what I've been wondering about...

Back in January, during Underwood's first appearance on the show, there was a brief video montage about her then also. One of the clips was of Underwood taking food to animals on her farm. Dunno why I remembered THAT particular clip, but as best as I can recollect, the show's producers had that same clip in Underwood's video segment tonight.

Why would American Idol's producers go to all the time and trouble to collect this kind of footage about Carrie Underwood, when at the time she was, at best, one of the 24 contestants that would be pared down to the final 12? Did all of the 24 contestants receive this kind of attention from the show that early on? And not just Underwood either: I noticed that Constantine Maroulis got much the same sort of "extra attention" from the show.

This isn't meant to "diss" either Underwood or Maroulis at all. Personally, I think they're both excellent singers and they should do well no matter how well American Idol ends up for them. But let's be honest here: how many times did we really see Anwar Robinson or Mikalah Gordon in the pages of People, or in the footage that Idol's producers released for public consumption? Could it be that maybe some contestants just aren't, ummm... "telegenic" enough to warrant equal consideration? Admittedly, Underwood is pretty and the ladies find Maroulis to be hot, but this is supposed to be a singing competition, not a beauty pageant.

Or maybe I'm seeing too much in this one little quirk. That might be fair to say too. But I guess I'm the kind of guy who doesn't like the deck stacked against anybody, no matter how "less appealing" they look in front of the television cameras. And hate to say it but this season of American Idol has tilted too much toward the fair-faced already.

Read More

The scary thing is, he's showing more public intimacy here than he does with his wife

"Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness?"

-- 2nd Corinthians 6:14

Real cowboys aren't supposed to be that limp-wristed, are they?

Read More