I resent that slur on my dancing

-and driving too, come to think of it.

Your Personality Is Like Alcohol

You're the life of the party, a total flirt, and probably a pretty big jokester. Sometimes your behavior gets you in trouble, but you still remain socially acceptable. You're a pretty bad driver, and you're dancing could also use a little work!

What Drug Is Your Personality Like?

This could be promising

Winona Ryder is reuniting with the scribe who wrote "Heathers" and helped establish the actress as the edgy "it" girl for Generation X.

Ryder has signed on to star as a feminist vigilante who becomes an urban folk hero in "Sex and Death 101," which Daniel Waters wrote and is directing.

Ah, Dan Waters. For me, one of the big question marks among writers. I mean, like it says up there he wrote "Heathers," one of the more perfect movies of the past 15-20 years. He then spent the rest the '90s writing (or at least having his name attached to) varying degrees of crap (Two words: "Hudson Hawk").

But there's no way of knowing how much the final results of those movies reflected his scripts. I do know in the case of "Batman Returns" he's criticised Tim Burton's treatment...which makes him even more my brother.

I have not seen his direct-to-video directorial debut, "Happy Campers" but perhaps I should.

And Ms. Ryder has quite simply never done anything else in her career as...again I come back to the word perfect...as "Heathers" was. So their working together again could be quite promising...quite promising indeed.

I wonder what the story's about?

The story follows a man (Simon Baker) whose life is upended by a mysterious e-mail containing the 101 names of every woman he has had sex with and, eerily, every woman he will have sex with in the future. He is stopped in his tracks when he meets Ryder, a femme fatale who targets men guilty of sex crimes against women.

Cool! Sounds like a Martin Scorcese film of a Harlan Ellison story, which I would certainly want to see.

Julie Bowen ("Boston Legal") also has joined the cast and will play No. 29 on the long list of Baker's libidinous conquests.

Cooler! The star and writer of one of my favorite movies reunited for what sounds like an interesting story, and joined by a star of one of my favorite TV series. Who could ask for anything more?

The movie will be "hard R" for nudity, sex scenes and frequent references to sex, said producer Cary Brokaw.

No comment.

Source: Yahoo! News.

I'm a weak, pathetic shell of a man

I don't like Jessica Simpson much. Believe it or not, I have no respect for her as an artist. As for the question that occasionally gets raised of Is she an airhead? Or is she playing one on TV and in the movies?

I've always thought, doesn't matter. Either she's really a dumb woman making it on the basis of her looks, which I don't like. Or she's cynically pretending to be a dumb woman, making it on sexist appeal, which I don't like.

And I've never even thought she was that cute compared to, say, the Chicks of Dixie. But...

God help me, she looks really, really good in these pictures.


I don't know if I can sleep with myself tonight...

"The hills are aaliive...with the sound of muusic..."

Shakespeare's Sister's latest "caption this photo" fun.

Hey you fool, watch out! You'll get mauled by...

A man shouting that God would keep him safe was mauled to death by a lioness in Kiev zoo after he crept into the animal's enclosure, a zoo official said on Monday.

"The man shouted 'God will save me, if he exists', lowered himself by a rope into the enclosure, took his shoes off and went up to the lions," the official said.

"A lioness went straight for him, knocked him down and severed his carotid artery."

Reuters.com.

I thought Monty Python settled this years ago! God exists, by two falls to a submission.

Do you ever wonder about Ann Coulter's relationship with her father?

Because lately when I read her statements, I get this image of a forlorn 13-year-old girl in heels too high for her, too much makeup and earrings too big for her head stamping her little foot and saying "Goddamnit, daddy! Pay some attention to me!"

Statements like these:

Ann on the widowed wives of September 11:

"These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities, and stalked by grief-erazzis. I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' death so much."

To which I have only to say, this.

Do you know what this quote has to do with this picture (and vice-versa)?

When the individuality of the artist begins to express itself, what the artist gains in the way of liberty he loses in the way of order, and when you're no longer able to attach yourself to an order, basically that's very bad...

Should I be worried that they don't think I'd make an excellent writer?

Your Career Type: Artistic

You are expressive, original, and independent. Your talents lie in your artistic abilities: creative writing, drama, crafts, music, or art. You would make an excellent: Actor - Art Teacher - Book Editor Clothes Designer - Comedian - Composer Dancer - DJ - Graphic Designer Illustrator - Musician - Sculptor The worst career options for your are conventional careers, like bank teller or secretary.

What's Your Ideal Career?

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

You Belong in 1961

If you scored... 1950 - 1959: You're fun loving, romantic, and more than a little innocent. See you at the drive in! 1960 - 1969: You are a free spirit with a huge heart. Love, peace, and happiness rule - oh, and drugs too. 1970 - 1979: Bold and brash, you take life by the horns. Whether you're partying or protesting, you give it your all! 1980 - 1989: Wild, over the top, and just a little bit cheesy. You're colorful at night - and successful during the day. 1990 - 1999: With you anything goes! You're grunge one day, ghetto fabulous the next. It's all good!

What Year Do You Belong In?

This can't be right. 1961? Oh great, just in time for the Bay Of Pigs. I can see whether Kennedy really was all that and a bag o'chips.

On the bright side, maybe I can find Boy George as an infant and tell him not to mess with Dr. Dream.

I could take in certain classic Disney movies on the big screen...but thanks to their pre-video rerelease policy, I did that anyway. But I could also still see Warner Bros. cartoons that way!

But still, 1961? The year the Rolling Stones musical career began? Me? (Don't pretend you're not enjoying this, Sherman) On the other hand, I would get to experience the rise of the Beatles. And there's always the beginning of Sinatra's Reprise years. And Motown, can't forget the Motor City.

But...me, some 20-25 years before the rise of electro? This can't be right.

Although you know, I could go see a few of the last classic Broadway musicals, including one of my favorites, Carnival....

1961, hmmmmm...

(We're not going-Keitha)

That settles that.

I was gonna make jokes, but that's almost spookily accurate

You Are Iceman

You tried to live a normal life, but it just wasn't possible A bit of a slacker, you rather tell jokes than cultivate your powers Powers: turning self and others into ice, making ice weapons, becoming nearly invisible

Which of the X-Men Are You?

The world is coming to an end

• Haditha.
• Militants in Palestine (or actually, anywhere).
• It now costs almost $40 to fill my tank with gas.
• George Bush is once again cynically (and kind of inexplicably, as Mark Evanier writes) exploiting homophobia for political purposes.
  
• Unattractive photos of Kate Winslet.

Well, that about wraps it up for this lifetime.

It's been some time since I indulged in a little gratuitious Tennessee-bashing

...so let's take care of that right now. This is from Frank Rich's Sunday NY Times column, via True Blue Liberal...

The current Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, has proudly put on this month’s legislative agenda constitutional amendments to stop same-sex marriage and flag burning. “Right now people in this country are saying it’s O.K. to desecrate that flag and to burn it,” he said on Fox News last Sunday, though it’s not clear exactly who these traitors are. A Nexis search turns up only one semi-recent American flag-burning incident — by a drunk and apparently apolitical teenager in Mr. Frist’s home state, Tennessee, in 2005.

Ahem. "Duck-humping, homophobic, rock-stupid, anti-sex, illiterate, flag-burning hillbillies!"

Ahhh. I feel much better. It's not good for me to hold those in too long.

Unfortunately, the rest of Rich's column is not funny at all, as he concludes:

We know that even as coalition partners like Italy and South Korea bail out, we are planning an indefinite stay of undefined parameters: the 104-acre embassy complex rising in the Green Zone is the largest in the world, and the Decider himself has said that it’s up to “future presidents and future governments of Iraq” to decide our exit strategy.

Actually, the current government of Iraq already is. On Thursday the latest American-backed Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, whom Mr. Bush is “proud to call” his “ally and friend,” invited open warfare on American forces by accusing them of conducting Haditha-like killing sprees against civilians as a “regular” phenomenon. If this is the ally and friend we are fighting for, a country that truly supports the troops has no choice but to start bringing them home.

Random Flickr-Blogging: IMG_1339

Hi there; I'm participating in something that Tom Hilton came up with.

Here's how it works:
Every week, we all start with the same randomly-generated four-digit number (call it ####).

Go to Flickr and search for "IMG_####". There should be anywhere from a few hundred to a couple thousand results.

Choose an image from among the results, post it to your blog (be sure to include attribution and a link back to the page where the image appears--this is done automatically if you use the 'blog this' feature in Flickr).
The rest is up to you. Write about the place shown in the image. Make up a story about it. Connect it to some issue you care about. Or just post it as an image you really like. Do whatever you want.

I think I like this one because this kid looks like he's already pushing his boundaries and he's only five months old. Also, in a neat bit of freaky symmetry...his name is Tom. Careful, kid, push too hard and you're gonna fall off the other end of that sofa.

...and if that isn't a metaphor for life, I don't know what is...

What he said

From Vincent van Gogh: Genius and Disaster, by A.M. Hammacher:

Poetry is actually more terrible than painting, he once said, for painters can at least keep silent.

I KNEW it!

So, you've heard me mention Bryan Adams, specifically, that I have a rant about him. It goes a little something like this: If I ever snap-I mean up on the water tower with a high powered rifle snap-and they come to you and they say, you read the man's blog, what do you think could have pushed him over the edge?

Two simple words: Bryan Adams.

Now, I don't think I've ever mentioned Voice Farm here, but they were a synth/punk (mostly synth) duo from San Francisco, Myke Reilly and Charly Brown. They achieved local radio success with a 1987 self-titled album, one of the coolest records ever.

They then released an inferior (to my ears, but it's got a couple of great songs) album, Bigger Cooler Weirder on a major label, Morgan Creek. Hitting the national dance charts with the samplejam "Free Love" & torch song "Seeing Is Believing."

I was just idly Googling them, as you do, when I came across this article from the SF Weekly seven years ago. The emphasis in the below quoted paragraph is mine.

Then Voice Farm all but disappeared. Blame Bryan Adams. Just as Bigger Cooler Weirder hit the streets, the film arm of Morgan Creek was getting set to release the Kevin Costner vehicle Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. It went looking for synergy -- and found it in "Everything I Do, I Do It for You," the soundtrack's putrid single, which would be jackhammered into the public consciousness throughout the summer of 1991. The bulk of Morgan Creek's promotional energies went into "Everything I Do," which left Voice Farm in the lurch. "The consensus was, 'Yeah, why put money into this experimental San Francisco band?'" says Reilly. "After all those years of working and developing our act ... it was sort of a hard blow. So I guess I lost my faith in the music industry."

And then they were assimilated by the Borg-I'm sorry, I mean, and then they started producing music for television commercials. As if I needed more fuel for the fire of my Bryan Adams hatred...

Come in, London...

Kind of a nice blog here by a couple documenting their trip across England with blog entries and photographs.

Kristen Bell IS Rory Gilmore in...

Actually, that's (top) a picture of Bell in costume for her upcoming film, Fanboys. But the headline is the first thing it made me think of.

Rory Gilmore (or more properly, Alexis Bledel) is seen above. Next season, Veronica Mars will air right after Gilmore Girls on their new, shared CW network.

There was a time, really not all that long ago, that this news would have excited me. But now, with my returning to Veronica Mars still very much up in the air after its writing spun out of control during the second half of last season; Gilmore Girls a definite "thanks, but no thanks" following its season finale (and the Palladinos departure)...well, it's funny how quickly things can change when your favorite shows go down the drain.

I feel like letting out my inner bitch, so...

...Let's play fashion police!

See, this is almost a nice outfit, and then...oh dear.

Veronica Mars cleverly disguises herself as a piece of luggage.

...and then she transformed herself into a helicopter and flew away...

How to get global warming through to comic book fans

Elliot S. Maggin, a longtime comic book writer, points out that if this were Krypton and Al Gore were Jor-El...

[Jor-El,] you will recall, is Superman's Kryptonian father, an eminent scientist whom the ruling "Science Council" of his world laughed out of the room when he told them that they were facing a planetary crisis: "Gentlemen, Krypton is doomed."

Like the Science Council, our leaders reacted with guffaws when one of our own rose to sound an earthshaking alarm. As a professional fabulist, by contrast, my reaction to Al Gore's 1992 book, "Earth in the Balance," was one of enormous excitement. It had pathos and drama, and extraordinary ideas expressed clearly and simply: a proposal for a new paradigm for the relationship between humanity and the planet.

Fiction, when it's any good, is a fantasy that tells the truth. Given the characters and degrees of suspension of disbelief with which you seed your story, you have to be internally consistent. A hero, for example, cannot choose as a matter of preference to let a bad guy get away with murder — or theft, or extortion, or environmental exploitation. And a group of characters established as a stodgy, priggish oligarchy of entrenched rulers cannot choose to accede to the warnings of an upstart — a rival, really — who makes a case, no matter how compelling, for an extensive and costly solution to a pressing problem. More likely, the rulers would deny that the problem exists.

Veritasiness

At the close of his commencement speech before 250 graduates (and 4000 others) at tiny Knox College in Galesburg, Ill. on Saturday, satirist Stephen Colbert left them with a piece of advise: Get your own TV show. “It pays well," he observed, "the hours are great and you have fans. Eventually, some nice people will give you an honorary degree for doing jack squat.”

Colbert, who slipped in and out of his rightwing blowhard TV persona on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” received an overwhelmingly positive response compared with the mixed reaction at the recent White House Correspondents Dinner. Afterward, students presented him with a purple “Veritasiness Tour” t-shirt (which translates, very roughly, as “truthiness”).

Colbert had opened his speech with: "My name is Stephen Colbert, but I play a person on TV named Stephen Colbert ... who says things with a straight face that he doesn't mean."

In that vein, Colbert considered the immigration debate: “It’s time for illegal immigrants to go — right after they finish (building) those walls." People keep saying immigrants built America, “but here's the thing, it's built now." His suggestions for securing the U.S.-Mexico border went beyond walls to include moats, fiery moats and fiery moats with fire-proof crocodiles.

He added that the border with Canada also has to be secure so Canadians cannot bring their "skunky beer" into the country. He backed English as the official language of the United States — “God wrote (the Bible) in English for a reason: So it could be taught in our public schools.”

Noting the college was founded by abolitionists, Colbert came out against slavery. “I just hope the mainstream media gives me credit for the stand I’ve taken today,” he said.

Source.