Friday, July 10, 2009

One thing that bugs me about cleveland.com lately is headlines that contain criminal's names, crime victims' names and yesterday, of all things, those who commit suicide. Even the lady who bashed in the fawn got a headline with her name in it. I finally wrote the reader representative an e-mail about this.

What bugs me is the name in the headline is used as if it's a famous person. Then you click on the page and find out it's a civilian. Then you hope to God the family has been notified. Scuttlebutt from the PD is that that putting the name in the headline gets more search engine traffic. That doesn't seem a proper way to do business though. I've noticed the change online for about 2 months, but I don't see that policy adopted by the print version. Yet.

Meal of Links

This opinion about Palin is the best summary of why she is so bad. Could not agree more.

If you know nothing about Townes Van Zandt, watch this movie, "Be Here To Love Me". It's only up for a week, but worth the time. It's amazing how these legends talk about Townes.

Wha, wha, wha? Morgan Freeman to marry his step-granddaughter.

All about "Lost Highway". Whatever you do, do not tailgate Mr. Eddy.

This week's mugshot roundup. #14 makes me laugh.

Exercise Yard

This week's SI is one of their best issues of the year. It's the annual "Where Are They Now?" issue. Great look at the AFL.

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7 Down: Fawcett's "Charlie's Angels" successor (4 letters) Answer: Ladd

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

When you drive 40 minutes to and from work, you tend to see lots of odd things. The latest was someone driving along with their dog.

Now, we've seen many dogs who poke their heads out the window. Some on the passenger side, some on the driver's side. But this was different. I swear this husky had two-thirds of its body hanging out of the driver's side window. The driver actually had their arm underneath the dog, I guess to secure it. If this Mensa had to make a quick move while driving, I am not sure what would have happened. Check that, I'm pretty sure and it would not be pleasant.

Meal of Links

Did you notice SciFi is now Syfy? Other channel name changes.

I saw Billy Mays on his Slider commercial last night. There are more ads coming.

Did you know there was a Slim Jim shortage? That's not as bad as this chocolate factory accident.

Exercise Yard

The Yankees are now streaming games online. Do the Indians have any fans left to make this happen?

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47 Across: Actress Ward (4 letters) Answer: Sela

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

I had to go by my Dad's tonight to fix his TV. He steps outside to gaze at his Back Forty for a while, comes back in and his cable box is not functioning. He has Wow! Cable, which has been acting like Damn! Cable for a while. I mean, he has no guide because he only has basic cable.

Anyhow, after manually hitting the power button of his cable box, a message appears on his TV screen: "This cable box is not functioning. To view programming, take the cable wire coming from the wall and connect it to the RF input of your TV". Great, we did that and it worked. Since he doesn't have digital cable, I guess he doesn't need the box and hopefully, he doesn't get charged for one.

Strange though. No notification on the elimination of his guide and now no advanced warning on the cable box.

Meal of Links

I had no idea that Casey Kasem finally left American Top 40. I mean, that didn't happen years ago?

A really bad landlord.

I miss Lebowski Fest once again this year because of the annual family reunion. Now the organizers are taking it on the road

Do the Indians know their farm club is giving away a free liposuction tomorrow? Maybe they should aim that at the bullpen.

From the mouths of babes. Michael Jackson's daughter speaks.

Gone but not forgotten snacks and sodas. My big mystery: Why did Frito-Lay stop making Baked Cool Ranch Doritos? That shit was good.

Palin.

Exercise Yard

SI.com with some midseason baseball awards. Let's see, any Indians? Why, yes. AL Worst Manager: Eric Wedge. AL Worst Executive: Mark Shapiro.

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51 Down: Eric Clapton classic (5 letters) Answer: Layla

Sunday, July 05, 2009

Best lines from the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest:

"The Leader of the Four Horsemen of the Esophagus." (Always my favorite!)

"The David Blaine of the bowel."

"His stomach is a cauldron in which food is cooked by the heat of his liver."

"He is a genius of competitive eating. He knows why they call it couscous, and not just cous."

BTW, Joey Chestnut ate 68 hot dogs in 10 minutes.

Meal of Links

Could the use of Twitter, Facebook, blogging actually take us to a golden age of writing? Are we actually writing more than we have been?

Cheeseburger cupcakes! Nice way to cap off the 4th.

The Indians coaching staff gets the dreaded "non-vote of confidence, we'll decide later." Tribe celebrates with a 5-2 loss upon hearing the news.

Bring on the discount tickets.

Exercise Yard

Steve McNair gone at age 36. Hard to believe. I really, really liked him at QB. One tough guy. I'd say some shady circumstances surrounding his death, but still hard to come to grips with. His death was ruled a homicide and I'm sure there is more to come.

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None on a sunny mid-summer Sunday.

Saturday, July 04, 2009

Happy Independence Day!

Friday, July 03, 2009

You know, I actually thought to myself last night there might be a major news story released today, because of the upcoming holiday. Typically, you can toss some bad news out there and hopefully it gets lost in the hubbub for the weekend. But never did I think Sarah Palin would resign today as Alaskan Governor. Interesting that Mark Sanford stays in South Carolina, but she goes. I'm not really sure what to make of it.

Who is advising this woman? God? I think God has more than he can handle, but this is truly bizarre. She mentions she didn't want to be a lame duck, after deciding not to run for re-election in Alaska, as that would be "politics as usual" and she would always oppose that. Huh? She cites the fact that the kids seem to be important to her now, but that completely contradicts the campaign last year.

I guess she longs for a bigger stage but like I said, I'm at a loss as to what this nutbag is up to. I like this joke though, "It's the first time a Palin actually decided to pull out early."

Meal of Links

It's the weekend for Tales of the Cocktail. Maybe we'll see some some new stuff. Why I just had a few Dark and Stormys for the first time a couple of weeks back. Goslings Dark Rum and Ginger Beer. I felt very Caribbean.

Lowe's is back in the game. I had my dishwasher installed yesterday. Good guy, great install, nice machine, took about 105 minutes.

The Calgary Stampede has started. Not the rodeo, but the run to the divorce lawyers after the event. Blame it on cowboy hats.

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He's ba-ack!

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35 Down: Country Music Hall of Famer _____ Travis (5 letters) Answer: Merle

Thursday, July 02, 2009

Gale and I went to see "Public Enemies" at the Regal at Crocker last night. They didn't wait for Harry Potter, as the price is now $10.00 per ticket for an evening show. That's the highest I've paid locally. And the trailers included one for "The Informant", the Soderbergh movie coming out in October. Excellent book, BTW.

"Public Enemies" had Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, and Marion Cotillard (Edith Piaf) in the starring roles. I liked it. It was a nice study of how J. Edgar Hoover (played by Billy Crudup) had to get as much publicity as he could for the FBI back then, because they were not exactly capturing a lot of criminals. Therefore, a capture or killing of Dillinger (Public Enemy No. 1) was their main priority.

Christian Bale played Melvin Purvis, the main in charge of the Chicago office and the primary hunter of Dillinger. It showed how some of the techniques in tracking criminals were in their infancy. And it noted how Dillinger was making it tough on the other criminals in Chicago by constantly grabbing headlines and bringing attention to them, making it tough to conduct business.

Johnny Depp was terrific as Dillinger. Good, but not great, movie. One criticism was pieces of dialogue seemed to be overridden by music or some other noises in general. I lost track probably about 5 or 6 times. Quite annoying.

Meal of Links

Here are your 4th of July TV Marathons. TV Land has "Andy Griffith" and SciFi has "The Twilight Zone" (again).

Vanity Fair on Sarah Palin. I now have a headache.

7 Hollywood Hoaxes. The movie, "Hoax", with Richard Gere wasn't that bad. Wasn't it "Capricorn One" that faked the moon landing?

Exercise Yard

I loved this one-act play about the Indians. Jhonny Peralta playing Jhonny Peralta made me laugh quite a bit.

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19 Across: Longtime pageant host Parks (4 letters) Answer: Bert