Mosquito Trap
FYI ? the domain name "www.mosquitotrap.com" is already owned by someone. Damn IT.
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FYI ? the domain name "www.mosquitotrap.com" is already owned by someone. Damn IT.
I went to Borders book store yesterday to pick up two books I have been meaning to read. I love book stores. The staff, while quirky and often a bit odd, are always helpful and friendly and usually offer some kind of interesting and witty comment. They might be strange, but that is what I except at a book store. I guess if you are working with books, having calm and pleasant personality helps. I always leave books stores, the large ones like Borders and Barnes and Noble as well as the small mom and pop shops, feeling good.
Next Wednesday we are heading to Duluth, Minnesota, for Patti?s cousin Kara?s wedding. Duluth is about 3 hours north of the cities and on the Wisconsin border. We have been looking forward to this trip since we found out she was getting married. Our trips to Minnesota are always nice and it?s great to see Patti?s side, something we have not done since Kara?s brother got married almost two years ago. This brother, Andy, had a son a couple of weeks ago so it will be a pretty eventful trip.
This will be Ethan?s first airplane trip and the first time all 4 of us have traveled on an airplane together (I took Emily to Atlanta last December but Ethan and Patti did not go). Emily has averaged about 3 airplane-length trips a year so she is pretty good with flying. Ethan is easy going and still young so we don?t anticipate much of an issue. The trip takes about 2 hours so not too long confined to a metal tube. STILL, with young kids, anything can be an adventure.
Patti called me today and the following conversation took place?
Patti: ?I just talked to my parents and since they are flying Northwest as well, they wanted to see if the airline would let you switch Emily?s seat and they would take her out with them from New York.?
Me: Stunned silence. Not sure I heard Patti right. Speechless.
Patti: ?You there??
Me: I made some kind of gurgle sound.
Patti: ?They are going out Monday so they would pick her up at the ferry (Long Island Ferry, a great halfway point between us and Patti?s parents) on Sunday and watch her until we get there.?
Me: ?Is something wrong with them??
Patti: ?Stop it?
Me: ?Drugs??
Patti: ?No?
Me: ?Are they drinking a lot??
Patti: ?That?s enough.?
Me: ?They?ve met Emily, right??
Patti: ?What is wrong with you??
Patti?s parents are really good like that and we appreciated the offer. I did call the airline but because our tickets are out of a different airport they wouldn?t do it without a large fee, a tongue lashing from the supervisor, purchase of an additional ticket, naming rights to our next child, a written promise to not fly them again and the deed to the house. It was a very nice idea though. All joking aside, I can see the draw. Little kids are fun and add an element of surprise to any travel experience. Plus she is cute and Jim would get a lot of attention from some of the ladies in the airport.
I will watch American Idol usually while I am doing something else, like reading or folding clothes. I like the music part of the show but hate the nonsense that surrounds the people singing. A couple of things.
- People like the British guy Simon because Randy, the black dude, and Paula Abdul just say the same thing with each person. They say it was alright, they liked it, and never really tell the truth. And ever time Simon opens his mouth he is honest and direct. People like that. I know I like it.
- I hate when singers spread their legs and squat while singing the song. I have no idea why they do it and it makes them look awkward.
- One of the girls on the show sang ?Against All Odds?, a great song by Phil Collins. When Randy said his peace (or is it piece), he looked at Paula and said something about he had the pleasure of working with Mariah Carey. I was like ?huh??, it?s a classic Phil Collins song. I thought for a moment Randy was thinking of something else. But I did a quick search on this thing called the web and found out that Mariah Carey did a remake of it. So I went on to iTunes, where you can listen to a quick sound bite of any song they have for sale, and listened to it. Not bad. Say what you will about her, but Mariah Carey has a great voice. I still like the Phil Collins version better, but what do I know.
Last night I couldn?t sleep so I started watching a really bad (but pretty good B-Horror level movie) called House of the Dead. As movies go, it was terrible acting, over the top cinematography, stupid plot, good looking but bad acting young cast, strange ?I know that guy? appearances by a couple of people, and stupid mingle of long drawn out scenes and a video game. Basically it was about a group of young people who use an island to have a party and get killed by the walking dead who inhabit the island. It was full of topless women which made it more awful because the scenes were so misplaced it was gratuitous. But I love, really love, movies about the living dead so of course I watched it until I fell asleep after midnight.
This morning I woke up really early, around 4:30, and while I was trying hard to get back to sleep and of course getting farther and farther away from actually getting to sleep, I heard something on the roof. It was probably a squirrel or something running around but it got me thinking about a pretty cool horror movie concept.
Here it is.
A young family...
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A young family, parents in their mid to late thirties, three kids all under the age of 10 or 12, live in a nice but rather small house in a fairly upscale suburb. They are fairly typical of middle class with two cars in the driveway, a fence around the place, clean and tidy rooms, hard wood floors, earth tone paint, well manicured lawn, cleaned kitchen before going upstairs for the night. One night the mother gets up really early (or really late, depending on your age) to check on the youngest child who still sleeps in a crib. She thought she heard something in his bedroom and since she is a light sleeper, she gets up to check. While walking down the hall, she hears something scamper on the roof. It sounds more like small, scratchy feet and not thumps, which would indicate an animal or something and not a person. She wasn?t really worried or scared, just a little concerned if it was in the attic.
A couple of hours later her husband and her get up and started their day. It was a work day so her husband gets dressed. She mentioned the noise while he was getting ready to head downstairs. He said he will take a look on the roof before he leaves to make sure nothing seemed out of place. The time of year is the summer so he cannot tell if there are footprints on something, like with snow, but he thought he would check anyway.
A short time later the husband walks out of the house with his briefcase in one hand and a coffee cup and keys in the other hand. He puts the stuff on top of the car and looks up at the roof. The house is pretty high up so he cannot see over the side of the house, so he starts to walk away from the house to the street to see the roof. While he slowly moves away from the house and the roof comes into view, he catches the glimpse of something moving to the other side of the roof, where he cannot see. Thinking it was just a cat or something, he leaves for work. He and his wife forget about it and don?t mention it when they talk later in the day.
Late that day the husband is driving down the street coming home from work and from a distance sees something on his roof, near the chimney. He squints and as he gets closer realizes it is something fairly big, larger than a cat or bird. He pulls into his driveway and gets out of the car. Across the street, an older neighbor waves to him and asks him when he got the roof ornament. ?I didn?t know you were into gargoyles?? the neighbor says. ?I?m not? replies the husband.
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As he crosses the street and looks back at his house, he sees a grotesquely and horrific looking gargoyle perched on the ridge of the roof. It is squatting with its feet supporting its weight and its knees and shoulders at the same level. He has no idea who put it up there. Since it will be light out for a couple of more hours, he decides to get changed, take out his ladder, and with what will be a group of neighbors watching, get on the roof to check out the ?statue?.
Here is where a good director can make things interesting. Slow camera shots. The camera coming up the ladder. Maybe a scene of the guy changing in his bedroom and he hears the scamper again, looking at the ceiling perplexed.
As the husband climbs the ladder, he gets to the point where he can see over the top and stares at the ugly and demonic looking thing. He starts to climb higher on the ladder to get on the roof and the statue quickly moves its head and with green and yellow eyes, glares at the husband. Startled, he losses his grip and almost falls, moving a few rungs down the ladder. He then looks up over the lip of the roof and the gargoyle has moved into a more menacing position, seemingly ready to strike, like a cross between a lion and a monkey. He decides to get off the ladder and calls the cops.
Not sure what happens after this. Maybe the cops come, maybe its animal control. Either way the thing stays there and gets menacing looking when anyone approaches. That night, with it still there, the family decides to sleep in the house. This is obviously a stupid idea, but good horror flicks are made up of stupid ideas.
When the woman is getting changed, she goes to close the blinds and the gargoyle suddenly hangs upside down from the gutter and looks into the window. The woman freaks out and they decide to stay at a hotel.
The next morning it is gone. One of the kids does some research at school and finds some history about gargoyles. They were created to drain water from buildings but she could not find out where the concept came from. Through additional research, maybe the movie introduces an eccentric old lunatic from the neighborhood who heard about it, some additional information is gathered. It turns out gargoyles come from a satanic something or other involving taking life from humans to feed something or other and they are really bad.
But since the thing has not been seen for a day or two, they are not too worried.
What we didn?t know, but will certainly find out in the movie, is that the gargoyle got on the roof by jumping from a large spruce tree that is close to the chimney. What we also don?t know but will learn from the movie, is that the house is next to a stream, which is next to a large area of woods that borders undeveloped federal land. The land, also undeveloped woods area, has some deep and dark mysteries that the family didn?t know about when they bought the house a couple of years ago. One mystery is that there is a rumor that an old church, built by separatists from England who settled in the land to avoid religious prosecution in the 1600s, is in the woods somewhere. Additional stuff is found that the church burned with hundreds of people trapped inside. The only thing to survive was a few gargoyles that were built on top. The ?living? gargoyles lived in the woods, came across the stream, up the spruce, and onto the roof to seek revenge or get a living baby or something because it was the 400 year anniversary of the killing of the parishioners.
So there, that is my movie. I am not sure what to call it. ?Gargoyle? seems too obvious, but maybe obvious is good with this type of flick. I would make it a blend of ?Stepford Wives? type neighborhood with trimmed lawns and nice houses and good looking people who dress nice even on weekends, with a dark and sinister ?The Crow? type dark and gloomy type atmosphere. Something to give people who live in nice towns and live comfortable lives something to keep them up at night and give them something to think about when they hear something scamper on their roof while trying to fall back asleep at 4:30 on a work night.
Emily has a pet goldfish named Dennis. Well...had. Dennis lives in a fish bowl about the size of a bowling ball (not round, just about that tall). Here is how the conversation went the morning Patti and the kids were going on their trip and I was getting ready for work.
<u>Patti</u>: You are going to have to change the water in the fish?s bowl. Do you know how?
<u>Me</u>: I?ll figure it out.
<u>Patti</u>: Fish are very sensitive to a change in water temperature, you have to do it right.
(Patti then explained how I am supposed to do it).
<u>Patti</u>: Did you get that?
<u>Me</u>: Not really, I wasn?t paying attention; can you go through it again?
(Patti patiently explains it again)
<u>Patti</u>: Ok?
<u>Me</u>: I?ll figure it out.
<u>Patti</u>: Dave, if Dennis dies while we are away, you?re gonna have to replace him with a goldfish that looks just like him.
Later in the day Patti called and said she changed the water so I didn?t have to do it. Great, I thought, Dennis will live another week. When I got home that night, I realized Dennis wasn?t moving. And he was at the bottom of the bowl. On his side. With rigor mortis setting in. Despite my best efforts to revive him, Dennis passed.
I stood at attention, took my hat off and placed it across my heart, lowered my head and recited a line from the famous W.H. Auden poem.
?Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves?
Technically I had nothing to do with Dennis? death, after all I didn?t feed him, change the water or even look at him. But since it happened on my watch, I have to replace him. I?ll go to the fish store tomorrow and get another goldfish. Maybe I?ll pick up two since boredom and loneliness probably killed the first one.
Dennis, we hardly knew ye. Be well my old friend, our world is less orange.
The other thing I want to touch on is the steroid use issue in baseball. I know it?s a big deal ? young fans see their sports heroes accused of taking drugs, historical baseball greats unfairly have their records taken away, young men are ruining their lives taking drugs, players not on the juice do not have a chance against the players who are ? but for some reason I could care less. I am tired of it already. It came as no shock to me that players were using steroids. I had Brady Anderson on my fantasy team the year after he hit 50 home runs and the rumors started back then. The steroid issue is old news, and even when it was new news, it was boring. I just do not care.
MLB is not going to do anything about it. They put a penalty for the first offense at a 10 game suspension (first time offense in the Olympics is a 2 year ban) which is a joke to these guys. They argue that you cannot do another test for months because it stays in your system but they use masking agents to block out the detection when they know when they are going to get tested. They can hide behind the union. Hey, it?s unfair and not right, but I like to see baseballs hit farther, pitchers throw faster, football players hit harder, running backs run faster and quarterbacks throw longer. I am part of the problem because I like to watch great athletes and I pay to go to games and I buy merchandise which pays for the owners to bid on players who hit the ball father, throw the ball faster and are better athletes than the next guy.
If fans really cared that much, they would stop buying jerseys and hats and shelling out a week?s salary for a night at a game. But I am sick of hearing about it already because there is nothing new to report. Players are accused of doing steroids, players deny using steroids, some players admit using steroids and offer a disingenuous apology (if they apologize at all), major league baseball and the player?s union does nothing, fans continue to watch games.
Jose Canseco and Jason Giambi could have been good guys if they came out and said they did steroids and it ruined their lives, sincerely apologized to the fans and their teammates, and begged kids not to follow the same path. But Jose goes on 60 minutes and every radio station saying the same meaningless thing over and over, all while his book hits the best seller list. I am as concerned about the steroid issue as I am about weather in Europe ? I might notice it but don?t really care.
From now on I am going to say ?I heard on NPR this morning?? when I talk about anything I heard, even if I didn?t hear it on NPR. Or even if I didn?t hear it on the radio. Or hear it at all.
Part of a long running and popular series is my "Real World Sequel" for well known Disney movies. Below is the third installment.
3. Cinderella
<u>Summary of Original Movie</u>
When Cinderella was young, her mother died and her rich father remarried a woman who already had two girls of her own. Shortly after getting married, I guess, her father died and the step mother treated her own two daughters much better than Cinderella. In fact, they all treated Cinderella terribly and made her their slave. I am not sure if her father died or not but I would assume so because the old lady and her daughters were really bad to Cinderella.
Anyway, Cinderella had to do all the chores and didn?t get to go to the good parties and stuff. One day the guys who took care of the local Prince really wanted to find him a wife. They threw a huge ball for all the young eligible ladies to attend so that the prince could meet someone and get married. Of course Cinderella was not allowed to go because she had to clean the bathrooms in the East Wing and then mop the attic ceiling and she was pretty upset. Her fairy Godmother appeared and turned some animals and vegetables into people and automobiles and away to the ball went Cindy.
At the ball the Prince hung out with Cinderella and ignored the other ladies. They spent all night talking but Cindy had to leave to be home by midnight, a deadline established by the Godmother.
The Prince?s handlers saw how happy he was with Cinderella so they set out to find her. Using a shoe the lovely young housemaid left behind, they went door to door looking for a foot to fit the shoe.
<u>Ending of Original Movie</u>
Miraculously there was only one person in the entire town who had what is probably the most common shoe size on the planet. Guess who that was? Yup, Cinderella. The Prince and Cinderella get married and live happily ever after.
<u>Real World Sequel</u>
There are two interesting sub-plots to the sequel. The first is that while Cinderella was busy cleaning the dining room floor with her tongue, the resentment was building inside her. When we thought she was talking to mice and birds, she was talking to herself, plotting her revenge. There was NO freakin WAY she was going to let her stepmother and the brats get away with how they treated her for so many years. Now that she was rich and had the Prince to back her, it was payback time.
3. Cinderella
<u>Summary of Original Movie</u>
When Cinderella was young, her mother died and her rich father remarried a woman who already had two girls of her own. Shortly after getting married, I guess, her father died and the step mother treated her own two daughters much better than Cinderella. In fact, they all treated Cinderella terribly and made her their slave. I am not sure if her father died or not but I would assume so because the old lady and her daughters were really bad to Cinderella.
Anyway, Cinderella had to do all the chores and didn?t get to go to the good parties and stuff. One day the guys who took care of the local Prince really wanted to find him a wife. They threw a huge ball for all the young eligible ladies to attend so that the prince could meet someone and get married. Of course Cinderella was not allowed to go because she had to clean the bathrooms in the East Wing and then mop the attic ceiling and she was pretty upset. Her fairy Godmother appeared and turned some animals and vegetables into people and automobiles and away to the ball went Cindy.
At the ball the Prince hung out with Cinderella and ignored the other ladies. They spent all night talking but Cindy had to leave to be home by midnight, a deadline established by the Godmother.
The Prince?s handlers saw how happy he was with Cinderella so they set out to find her. Using a shoe the lovely young housemaid left behind, they went door to door looking for a foot to fit the shoe.
<u>Ending of Original Movie</u>
Miraculously there was only one person in the entire town who had what is probably the most common shoe size on the planet. Guess who that was? Yup, Cinderella. The Prince and Cinderella get married and live happily ever after.
<u>Real World Sequel</u>
There are two interesting sub-plots to the sequel. The first is that while Cinderella was busy cleaning the dining room floor with her tongue, the resentment was building inside her. When we thought she was talking to mice and birds, she was talking to herself, plotting her revenge. There was NO freakin WAY she was going to let her stepmother and the brats get away with how they treated her for so many years. Now that she was rich and had the Prince to back her, it was payback time.
But like many things, the pain she felt while being a slave dissipated with time. Like being slapped, the sting goes away, and distance can wash away a lot of bad feelings. After she went from living like a slave to living like a princess, her animosity was not nearly as strong as it was when she was being denied simple things like access to the family hot tub. She even started to feel empathy toward the three bee-atches who treated her like that. After all, Cinderella knew she was a good person deep down inside, but you cannot fault others for not having the same humanity. Her solace was in knowing that the stepmother was a miserable and crabby old crank who was stuck with two idiot daughters who couldn?t find an ounce of grace if their lives depended on it.
Meanwhile, the stepmother and the two stepsisters tried to use Cinderella?s new position in the community for their betterment. They kept calling and tried to become best friends with the new young bride. Cinderella decided that her revenge would be to completely ignore the three women and treat them like Fredo ? they were dead to her. Being completely ignored by Cinderella was more of a living hell than any physical payback would ever have brought.
The second sub-plot to this sequel is about Prince Charming. One thing that viewers probably didn?t notice during the ball scenes in C1 was that the Prince was into Cinderella because he loved her beautiful blond hair, her lovely evening gown, she had gorgeous blue eyes and he especially loved her shoes. Yep, Prince Charming was gay. The reason he made such a fuss over the shoe Cinderella left behind was not because he was interested in the owner of the shoe, but because it was a Manolo Blahnik. They go for 500 bucks a pair. And the reason the king couldn?t find a wife for the Prince was not because he was picky, but because he wasn?t into women.
So the Prince went through the wedding because he knew that back then there was no way around it. He had to. If he came home to his father and his father?s friends and said he wanted to marry a man, it would have gone over like a fart in church. This was middle-age Europe, not Massachusetts. So Prince Charming went through the ceremony and reception with Cinderella while his ?friends? silently fumed in the shadows.
Cinderella knew something was wrong on their honeymoon. The Prince never touched her. She thought they would spend the entire honeymoon locked up in the cabana but they spent it shopping and getting facials. After 6 months of nothing even coming close to intimacy, Cinderella and the Prince talked.
The movie ends with the two having a long heart-to-heart. The Prince comes clean and admits that he is gay and apologizes to Cinderella about putting her through all of this. She is so grateful to be out of the horror show with her stepfamily that she doesn?t care. They agree to live together as friends, like Will and Grace, and see what happens.
I see a TV series following.
The NHL was officially cancelled Wednesday. I have not been following the details too closely, mainly because I don?t really watch the NHL, at least not until the playoffs, but from what I can tell there is no solution in site. The sticking point, again, I am not an expert, is the salary cap. The players, rightfully so, want 49 mil and the owners want 42.5 mil. I guess almost all of the teams are losing money and there is no way for them to make money. In fact, the entire league lost a huge amount, over a billion dollars, over the last 10 years. Interest in pro hockey is at an all time low, a problem on a different scale because the NHL should have capitalized on Wayne Gretzky like the NBA did with Michael Jordan. Other than my buddy Jay and about 6 other people, no one is really into pro hockey. For a number of reasons, it has steadily been losing viewers. So the owners are losing money and the players are not willing to compromise on the salary. I am sure there is more to it than that, but for me personally the only impact it has on my life is that I don?t have to click through whatever channel is showing a pro hockey game on my channel surfing safari.
Apparently Red Sox outfielder Trot Nixon called Alex Rodriguez a clown. He also said the following
?But when people ask me about the Yankees, I tell them about [Derek] Jeter and Bernie Williams and [Jorge] Posada. I don't tell them about Rodriguez ... He can't stand up to Jeter in my book, or Bernie Williams or Posada."
Nixon than said that while Rodriguez is an ok player, he is not the Yankee type.
Nixon said he respects the Yankees' Jason Giambi, who is the focus of a controversy surrounding steroid use in baseball.
"I don't feel sorry for Giambi but I do have a great amount of respect for him, for what he's done in this game, the kind of person he is," Nixon said. "He's a superstar and he doesn't act like it.
"A lot of people have lost respect for people like Giambi. I can't judge him for what he did," Nixon added. "I don't even know him that well, but I enjoy talking to him over at first base.
Hey, Trot Nixon, keep your fat mouth shut. No one, especially the Yankees, gives a CRAP what you say. Oh, excuse me. You have praise for Jeter, Williams and Posada. Let me tell you something, you mean as much to them as CSPAN-2 does to me. NOTHING. You don't hold a jock strap compared to them. Your dirt-dirt, slob, tobacco-spitting, unshaven-goat-smelling, surly crap might go over well in Boston where you're a shining light compared to your teammates, but you would be in line behind the bat boy and in front of the hot dog salesman for playing time with the Yanks.
After the Yankees won any of their 4 World Series from 96-2000, or after their two lost bids in 2001 and 2003, did you hear them attacking any Red Sox players. No. It's called winning with class, look it up in your MLB Player's Union assimilation guide.
There is such a thing as winning with class and something tells me the Red Sox don't plan on doing it.
I called the Red Sox today to get on a wait list for Season Tickets. They have regular season tickets plus a 10 game plan. I got on for both. 50 dollar fee to get on the list which kind of sucked. Now it?s a waiting game. Waiting for someone to drop their season tickets when every game is sold out and 20 dollar bleacher seats go for 50 bucks. Yeah, I know, it?ll be a long wait.
The other day we were watching TV and a Disney commercial came on with a montage of a bunch of Disney movies. It showed a quick shot of a bunch of movies like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Mary Poppins, Snow White, etc.
Since the montage was showing all of the romantic scenes, Patti said ?They should make a follow up movie about what happens when they get married.?
So I thought I?d take a shot at coming up with the sequel for the originals, the ?realistic? sequel. This is the first two chapters in a series of realistic endings. I plan to write more when I feel like it and there is nothing you can do about it.
1. Beauty and the Beast.
<u>Summary of Original Movie</u>
A hairy beast lives in a mansion on a huge estate with a bunch of talking appliances and utensils. The beast and his staff, the appliances and utensils, were cursed at some point for some reason and that is why they are the way they are. To undo the curse, the beast has to get some action from an attractive young lady. It just so happens that Belle, an attractive young lady from the local village happens to find herself a prisoner of this beast and over time teaches him manners and how to behave. They become friends.
A steroid injecting bully from the town for some reason wants to kill the beast and he gets a group of other nitwits to march out to the castle with pitchforks and torches to kill the thing. A fight ensues, the bully gets killed I think, the beast gets killed too.
<u>Ending of Original Movie</u>
While the beast lies dieing, the young lady kisses him and he turns back into a handsome young man. While turning back from a beast to a human, he somehow becomes un-dead and they kiss again. The guy?s staff also turns back into humans or whatever they were originally.
<u>Real World Sequel</u>
The thing the first movie failed to mention was that the beast, since the town was afraid of him, never paid taxes. Keep in mind that his castle, worth millions alone in the inflated French real estate market, sits on hundreds of acres of prime development land. The town administrative office, made up of three selectmen, decide that it?s about time he starts paying property tax. Since his spell was just released, they only go back two years, which is a ton of money, especially for someone who hasn?t had a job in years.
Belle, being from a poor household and from a fairly poor part of town, could care less about the house and property. All she wants is to be with her fresh-shaven young beau, the old beast. So they decide to sell off parcels of land to a condo-development company to pay off some of their taxes.
Meanwhile, the household staff is getting restless because they are working their asses off but not getting paid. They look into things and create a union, House Support Local 302. The union (local 302) rep, the old candlestick, comes to Belle and the Beast with a new contract. Their first contract actually. They demand reasonable stuff like to get paid, health insurance and a 401K plan. They also threw some ridiculous stuff in there because they knew they are going to have to negotiate for the more important stuff. They knew that the Beast will never give them 5 weeks of paid vacation and sick days that accrue, but they didn?t want to concede on a mandatory 4% pay increase each year so they put those things in to negotiate.
Belle and the Beast knew they could not pay the house staff, pay to maintain the mansion and pay off the remaining back taxes. So they decide to sell the rest of the land, sell the mansion, and move. After doing some research, they plan to buy a small place in a town right outside Paris that appears to be in the initial stages of gentrification and had good schools. Local 302 didn?t mind and ended up moving to Las Vegas to continue to work in the services business.
After selling off the land and house, pay back taxes, buy the place in the new town, the happy couple had enough money left over to start a new life. Belle opens a small flower shop and the Beast goes to work delivering Poland Springs water. The movie ends with Belle leaning out the front door of her house, 6 months pregnant, kissing the Beast before he leaves for work.
2. Little Mermaid
<u>Summary of Original Movie</u>
A mermaid lives in the?well, ocean, but wants to leave to live with humans. Her dad, who is also the king or ruler of the deep, at least the good fish, forbids her from having anything to do with humans. But Ariel, the mermaid, is pretty determined so she makes a deal with the bad octopus and is granted legs in exchange for her voice. The catch (pun intended) is that she must do the humpty-dumpty with the handsome Prince Eric, a good looking guy up top. If Eric doesn?t give her some lovin?, she gets sent back to the deep and her soul belongs to the squid.
Through some trickery, she doesnot get the prince to kiss her and a big fight ensues between her dad and the octopus.
<u>Ending of Original Movie</u>
The dad gets her soul back, frees all the other trapped souls, and in a gesture of fish-altruism, makes Ariel a human so she can marry Prince Eric.
Her friends from the sea, a crab, seagull and flounder, are along for the ride. It?s great fun.
<u>Real World Sequel</u>
The sequel starts with the two going on a huge, extravagant and expensive honeymoon. After all, they both grew up in privilege and money, going to the best schools, having daddy pay for college and grad school, getting new cars or whatever they drive underwater, spending Saturdays at the club while mommy drinks herself stupid and dad ignores the kids while playing golf and smoking cigars. Money means nothing to these two.
After the 4 month honeymoon that involved everything but a cruise, they return to Eric?s seaside castle. Having grown up in the sea, Ariel nags Eric to move farther inland. Since he pays others to collect taxes from the surfs that run the farms, Eric sees no reason why he shouldn?t. After all, Ariel is pretty hot, has a nice voice, and makes a great baked white-fish dish with lemon and garlic.
So Eric buys the mansion that Belle and the Beast just moved out of and soon gets bored. Ariel is obviously a spoiled brat since she never listened to a word her dad said and almost lost her soul because of it, so why should she listen to Eric. He wants her to do some charity work with the local homeless shelter and organize fund raisers for the other wealthy land owners. But she wants to hang out with the good looking tough guys who were part of that mob who almost killed the beast. Eric is everything she ever wanted but doesn?t have that wild side Ariel is looking for. Keep in mind, Ariel almost got herself and the flounder eaten by a shark to get human artifacts out of a sunken ship. She made a deal with the devil as the last resort to get what she wanted. Sneaking around her husband?s back to smoke cigarettes is child?s play.
One day Ariel has a little too much mead and ends up high-tailing it out of the county with a local tough guy. She realizes she is not ready to settle down and live the life of cocktail parties and almond colored tennis outfits and large hats while watching polo matches. She is seen riding away in his 1742, two-horse carriage.
Eric finds out and at first is calm. Being raised by a disciplined but fair father, he needs to make sure he doesn?t do anything rash or something he will regret. He plans out a plan to go find her, get rid of the other guy, and make Ariel come back. Through his network of land owners, he finds out where Ariel is and goes along with two body guards to talk to her. The guy Ariel is with finds out and meets Eric before he can talk to Ariel. He says that for the right price, he will break up with Ariel, break her heart, and she will realize how great Eric is. Eric agrees and pays the guy.
Eric goes back home and waits for weeks for Ariel to come back. When he realizes something is wrong, Eric treks out to find her and the boyfriend. Eric finds out that it was all a sham and the two ran off with his money. He is pissed as all hell and says to-heck with the niceguy act and seeks revenge.
The rest of the movie is Eric getting medieval on the boyfriend, his friends and finally Ariel. It?s not as brutal as Pulp Fiction or Kill Bill, but better than Revenge with Kevin Costner. The movie ends with Eric getting away with the killings and the last scene is Eric fishing with Ariel?s body parts.
Hi there. I can?t believe how long it has been since I wrote anything about the Red Sox. I am not shaking off the cobwebs of sleep and making my bed, just sort of peaking my head out a little since pitchers and catchers report on Tuesday. My New York sports team affection (affliction) has taken a hit with two New England Super Bowls acting as book ends to a Boston World Series title. I kind of feel like Rocky in Rocky 1, beat up but ready for more.
So the big thing this past week is ?roids. The funny thing is that Boston sports and media have been pretty quiet since none of their players are being mentioned. Now that Roger Clemens has been named, he is suddenly that ?New York Yankee? player, not someone who played for Boston most of his career. The wonderful, hardworking, clean, honest, church going players of the Red Sox have not done those nasty steroids and never will because Boston is the greatest EFFING PLACE ON EARTH. Their sanctimonious crap about being all that is good while New York and everything else represents the prince of darkness himself makes me want to throw up in my mouth. But hey, what do you expect from a town that just won two Super Bowls and their first World Series since World War 1. This place ? writers, reporters, athletes, owners, fans ? are walking around like they just took home the prettiest girl at the dance. Good for them. I hope she?s high maintenance and is a terrible cook. Have fun Boston, enjoy where you are right now, you know how things work. It can turn bad quickly.
Talk to everyone in a couple of months.
Another running commentary of tonight?s Apprentice, a show that mocks the real world by showing off a bunch of backstabbing idiots who treasure a guy who turned his father?s millions into more millions.
- Recap of last week's show. Trump let the rocker go.
- I have to admit the show?s theme song, ?Money? is catchy. I just wished they got rid of the images of the contestants, Trump, his staff, his helicopters and anything that makes me realize I am about to waste a precious hour of my life watching this crap.
- Magna are idiots?? YOU?RE ALL IDIOTS, YOU IDIOT!!
- Who?s a lazy piece of crap? Are we watching Survivor?
- When did Friday from Adamm?s Family get on the show? I didn?t read the press release.
- Yes, a good steamrolling is a great idea, but with actual equipment that results in your REAL death, Michael.
- Ouch. No make up. Stop those morning shots of the women, I just threw up in my mouth.
- This is not a job interview. Stop saying that. This is a stupid TV show.
- Dove Cool Moist? This should be fun and original. Or maybe it will resemble a bunch of mice running around in different directions without a clue. Not sure which one.
- One of those contestants works for IBM. I don?t want to say which one because it?s an insult to IBM. Actually, if I called her a moron it would be an insult to morons.
- Extravaganza? Oh, stop using big words Friday, you?ll have to take a nap on a cushy blue mat.
- I love George. I wish he provided a running commentary but with hard curse words, maybe on cable so they wouldn?t have to bleep out the fun parts.
- Oh, there is that girl but with makeup. My mistake, she is hideous either way.
- Kristin?s boyfriend is a director so that makes her an expert. With that logic, I am an expert on giving birth.
- How about this idea for a commercial: You show a bunch of media whores who desperately want the camera to pan on them and for the producers to give them air time so they act domineering, arrogant and surly. Oh wait, that is this show.
- Hey, how did that shot of a Fed Ex truck get in there? Trump is right now sending Fed Ex an invoice for 100 grand for that little promo. Sales at Fed Ex are going up 50% as I write this. This is TRUMP?s show damn it and everything that touches it turns to gold.
- Actress? She is an actress? She is doing a terrible job of acting pissed. I would fire <i>her</i>.
- Why does the show make them hold their cell phones like that? It?s annoying and no one I know holds them like that. They look like my daughter holding a new food deciding if she is going to take a bite or throw it at me and run away.
- I hate the scenes of trump acting like a big shot followed by some useless and obvious pieces of crap?I mean advice.
- You?re an unknown actress, read: waitress. Get used to being treated poorly.
- Wait! Did that skeezy redneck lawyer just sweet talk that ?pissed? actress. What the f? Did I just enter some upside down world of right and wrong?
- Why are they making up new music? I can download something from iTunes for 99 cents. I bet those guys cost like 10 or 12 dollars an hour. Maybe more.
- You called someone a bitch? Sorry, who were you talking about? The entire cast?
- Hey, that guy uses the same trainer as me. We definitely have the same abs.
- Ha ha ha. This is great. Soft core porn. Three seasons of watching this disaster has finally paid off. No! Don?t stop there. Why not play Bolero and have the guy call himself Lightning Rod or Cinnamon Stick. Ha. I think I just peed my drawers laughing so hard.
- I would love to see the white wine spritzer fly out of the mouth of the Dove exec that just saw that commercial. I would pay a year?s salary for that. Right now Dove lawyers are calling NBC lawyers demanding to know what the hell happened, and see you at the club on Saturday, bring your new putter, I want to test that baby out.
- Oh boy, they are going to show the porn. I cannot WAIT to see this. And thank GOD he ripped into them about the uniforms. Oh Jesus, that was worse then I could have ever imagined. I was not prepared for that. My heart is pounding with excitement.
- That other commercial was equally as awful. It?s kind of like picking between Idi Amin or Momar Kadofi as Humanitarian of the Century. How do you want to die? Slow and painful, or painful and slow?
- Puh-lease, taking a call from a helicopter. Doubt it.
- Ha. ?You both sucked?. HE DID NOT PICK A WINNER. HE DID NOT PICK A WINNER. I feel like in Rocky 4 when they start yelling ?The Russian is cut.? Now if all challenges had the same ending, I would start writing nice things about this show.
- You have to be a moral gentleman? Why start now you fat loser.
- Cut to scene of Elvis playing a game boy. And lawyer playing pocket pool.
- Did he just say ?Vegetable Porn?? No he didn?t. Not on my watch he didn?t.
- Technology Firm Owner = Tech Call Center Support Rep.
- Love the fact that they have solitaire up on the computer screen. Now it?s much more like a typical office.
- I never noticed how the board room waiting room was so red. The carpet, walls, desks, faces.
- The first time this ever happened? Take it easy Trump, the show?s only been on for a year and this is only the third season. Relax big boy and stop being so dramatic.
- Something tells me Friday likes to watch ?big people? videos with whoever crawls home with her on a typical Friday night.
- ?Stupid cucumber idea.? ?You must have been crazy.? I love when Trump uses those words.
- Chris is a loose canon. He can?t talk without acting like he is drunk and ready to punch a woman. He talks like a steroid-using-vodka-for-breakfast-drinking-high school football nut.
- I don?t know what?s harder to believe, that they made those commercials or that Kristin has a boyfriend.
- ?? and I?m so pretty and my hair smells nice and look at my fancy nails.?
- Stop begging Kristin. Save a crumb of your dignity and take the firing like a man, or whatever you call yourself.
- Dove is better off making their own ad? Dove is better of showing clips of babies screaming and baby seals being clubbed to death than using those two groups to make commercials.
- Ooh, the world premier of the new commercial from Dove. How exciting. This is so exciting. A Dove commercial. Being seen for the first time. By me, and others who watch this thing called ?TV?. This is amazing. Thrilling. I am going to run a steak knife deep into my head to make it more fun.
- Actually, this is a train wreck. Carolyn is no good with the scripted part and that whole thing left me feeling like I just walked away from narrowly being in a bad car accident. I am physically shaking right now with sweat falling down my hind-side split.
- Patti is sitting 3 feet away from me with another laptop pinging messages like ?u r soooooooooooooo hot? and ?grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr?. See what this show does to people.
Coupe of quick comments on the Super Bowl.
- From the chatter by local radio show hosts and a lot of national press people, Jacksonville was up there with the Sudan at the height of civil war and Europe during the dark ages as a fun place to be. Sure, the city was probably overwhelmed with such a huge event and I would bet the NFL will never do that again, but lighten up. I kind of feel like they are picking on Ray Ramona for not winning an Oscar for Mooseport. What did they expect? 15 thousand hotel rooms for over 100K visitors? Do the math.
- I was quick to make fun of Paul McCartney as the half time show. My first reaction was ?Is that the best they can do?? Why not get Wayne Newton, I think he is older. But I have to admit I found myself watching it and humming along. Safe and I bet the coveted 52-75 year old age group the advertisers try to target were glued in, if they stayed up that late.
- The Patriots won because they did not play as terrible as the Eagles. The Patriots did not look great, but the Eagles looked terrible. Maybe it was because of what Belichick threw at them, but something tells me it was also because they played terrible. If McNabb didn?t throw like I do in my backyard playing catch with my 3 year old, and Eagles coach Reid didn?t treat the last 6 minutes like he was WINNING the game, it might have had another outcome. But like true great teams do, the Pats did just enough to win.
- The commercials were kind of disappointing. I liked the AmeriQuest commercials, they were original and funny. The Budweiser commercial with the troops walking through the airport brought a tear to my eye, but not much else did it. GoDaddy.com was awful, and this coming from someone who flips through my wife?s copy of Fitness to look at the cute girls. Burt Reynolds should be kicked out of the SAG for that dumb commercial, and FedEx, or whatever company created that commercial, should be fined by the FCC for paying for it. And there should be a rule that no commercials that have previously aired, like the ?Easy? button one, can air during the Super Bowl. Good or bad, they should all be original.
- When Michael Douglas was doing that patriotic thing before the game, he said something about honoring those who have given all of us our freedom, and they immediately panned to Tom Brady. I thought ?Oh Jesus, are they implying that Tom Brady won World War Two?!?!? I did like the national anthem with the military academies, nice touch and great way to bring in the troops. The pregame music with the school for deaf and blind had me a little confused, and I thought showing Ray Charles singing with Alecia Keys was a little bit much, but I am cynical and surly, so you can take what I think with a grain of salt.
- Boston is treating the Patriots winning like my daughter treats me when I get home from work every day. She?s glad to see me but quickly gets back to her Barbie dolls. Maybe it?s because the Patriots winning, constantly, is expected, but it just seems like the celebration is kind of subdued. Who knows, maybe it?s just me and I am in the middle of a sports hell with a Red Sox championship sandwiched between two Patriot Super Bowl titles. Hey, if the Nicks end up in last place, my NY sports affliction will feel like a stomach virus on an airplane, stuck on the tarmac, in the middle seat, next to a goat-smelling redneck, with a 5 hour plane ride ahead, and no battery life left in my laptop, and my book left behind in my hotel room, and malaria-grade diarrhea.
- Belichick called into the Howard Stern show the morning after winning. Very surprising but I heard most of the interview. Stern ended the call by asking the coach if he and his wife had sex after the game. And Howard Stern wonder?s why more respectable personalities don?t call in.
My last comment on the Super Bowl is that despite the mediocre plays, the average commercials, the lackluster half time show, the let down of the incumbent winning, it was still a fun day and I look forward to next year.
Before I begin, this is not a Delta-bash. I know I tend to criticize them a lot but this is something I found interesting.
I went online to try to change my seat on a Delta flight I am on today. In addition to checking in early, you can easily change your seat online. So I moved to an exit row. There are requirements for sitting in an exit row seat like you have to speak English, have to be able to lift 40 pounds or something, can?t have a child in your lap, etc. The interesting thing was when I moved the seat I had to answer 4 yes/no questions. Usually when you have to do this, all answers are either YES, or NO. So for example, there might be a list of health related questions when you are signing up for online access to your pharmacy. Usually all answers follow the same format, like do you have a current medical condition, do you currently take prescriptions, do you have a mental disorder that compels you to run a blog. For the most part a typical answer would be no. You get the idea. So this is how the Delta questions went.
1 ? Are you under the age of 15? (I answered no)
2 ? Will you have an un-ticketed infant with you? (I answered no)
3 ? Do you have a fear of crashing? (ok, they didn?t ask this but it was some other type of question where I would have answered no)
4 ? Can you assist other passengers in the event of an emergency? (Now, this last question I answered no because I wasn?t paying attention and didn?t read the question. I just assumed that to get the seat I should answer all questions NO)
I just thought it was strange that they would throw a curveball at you. I guess it?s a good idea though because it made me go back and read the questions. So if I was in charge, I would have the questions worded something like this.
1 ? Are you not over the age of 180 months?
2 ? Aren?t you unwilling to not provide assistance in the event a non-emergency didn?t happen?
3 ? If the flight left at 3:43PM traveling west crossing two time zones, and it was daylight savings time but your religion didn?t recognize the Chinese New Year, how heavy is the airplane with 75% unfilled stand-by window seats using the German method of mixing azure indoor wall paint? You have 30 seconds to answer.
Nicolas Negreponte, famed founder of the MIT Media Lab and author of Being Digital, millionaire many times over, recently sketched out a design for a PC that Third World governments could buy in bulk for $100 apiece and distribute to children in a bid to boost their educations, according to an article by technology writer Hiawatha Bray in the Boston Globe yesterday.
Negroponte and his wife started two schools in Cambodia in 1999 and were able to get laptops for all the kids, and he wants millions of other poor kids to have laptops.
Some of the more interesting points from the article. And my restrained response.
"You don't have to be dirt poor to desire a dirt-cheap computer." No, you have to be a poverty stricken kid who has a half a bowl of rice once a week. Dirt-poor is an upgrade for most of the world' worst people. How about getting them food. Or something to treat their dysentery, malaria or AIDs.
"But for the world' poorest countries, laptops may someday cost just $100."Great, these countries can spend money on laptops and ignore waste management systems, security, healthcare and other indulgences like FOOD and MEDICINE. Or roads.
"Any problem you name, from birth control to basic health to poverty elimination to world peace, is best addressed through education."I totally agree, but how are we introducing computers when there are no classrooms, or government, for that matter. These aren't the projects of Cambridge or Cambodian college professor' kids we' re talking about. These are the 15 year old kids who weigh 30 pounds and are lucky to be alive each day.
While talking about the cheap laptops, "It's a noble goal, and an exciting one even for American tech buffs." Has anyone asked those in this world who have given their lives to make the third world and developing countries a better place? Ask the Peace Corp if they think boxes of laptops are a good idea. Not sure but I would guess they would ask for clothes, medicine and something to eat.
"Lots of tasks need just a little computing power; those are the jobs well suited to Negroponte's dream machine." I agree. Tasks like providing nourishment to starving babies requires almost no computing power. And how much computing power does the task of stopping ethnic cleansing need? Hmm? Wanna answer that one?
"For one thing, it would be light. There would be no disk drives to speak of - hard, CR-ROM, or floppy." Huh?? Disk drives? Floppy? The people in third world countries DO NOT GIVE A SHIT about USB ports and track points. My Lord, do you think that if you walked up to some 12 year old wearing a faded Nike shirt holding a machine gun guarding the local diamond mine he would say that he is excited about a laptop that wasn't too heavy?
"Instead, the supercheap laptop would boast a gigabyte of main memory and use flash memory to store essential software." Cool, a gigabyte of main memory while the laptop is used to treat smallpox.
"To add software or remove files, users would plug in a key chain flash memory drive or an external hard drive." Let's get those starving kids a thumb drive that is in the shape of candy bar. I have seen them on ebay and can get one for 10 bucks plus 7 for shipping and handling. Or sushi-shaped thumb drives are really popular in Japan, I have been meaning to get one. Let's order some with 32 meg capacity, a few with 64 meg and some with 128 meg for our star performers.
"The planned $100 laptop would include WiFI wireless networking. Even more impressive is Negroponte's plan to include mesh networking capability." So let me get this straight. While a starving mother of 5 struggles to provide clean water for her kids, she can access a wireless network to do what? Find out what the temperature outside her hut is? And even I don't need mesh networking capability. Something tells me you can leave off that little add-on and maybe provide an energy bar instead.
"Imagine a small town in Peru with one of these laptops in every home. They'd automatically talk to each other, instantly creating a municipal communications network for instant messages, e-mails, maybe even voice traffic." I can see the instant messages now. They would go something like this.
4evahhungry: Hi! Gr8t to see u online. Any idea when the UN peacekeepers are suppose to arrive?
2skinny2think: Hey girlfriend! Not sure. But I could use some more oatmeal paste, it's been almost 2 months since I ate.
H8myhair: 2 months? Lucky u. Stupid sewage is back in my drinking H2O. Heard General Kadafi (spelling?) is heading our way.
EyesCrustedShut: IC. My 4 year old brother is thinking of becoming a soldier. Did u see Gilmore Girls last night?
"The Negroponte machine would rely on the Linux operating system, which can be had for free, and easily customized." Oh, well, that is good news. We wouldn't want a young man who lost his legs to some landmine to shell out $699 for Windows XP.
"The most challenging part of the design will be the display screen." No, the most challenging of part of the design will be holding classes in war ravaged countries to teach orphan kids how to create a PPT presentation.
"By the way, you're the battery. Negroponte wants to power his laptop with a crank, just like the ones used on emergency radios." Now there is a good idea. Let's sap the last ounce of strength from poverty-rich people to crank up the ol' Negroponte 5000.
"God bless him for his good intentions - and for coming up with a gadget that would be a hit even with people who can afford something better." Sweet mother of mercy stop kissing this guys ass. God bless him? Are you joking? If he said he is working on a new energy source that would require no fuel and provide little risk to the environment, I would say God bless him. And coming up with a gadget for people who can afford something better? What have you been reading? He is doing this to help third world countries. "Afford" is not a word they use regularly. You must be thinking of your Harvard club buddies, sorry, my mistake. I thought we were still talking about Sally Struthers' kids.
"Consider the lowly journalist on assignment. The Negroponte PC would be ideal for writers, students, travelers and hangers-on at the local Starbucks."? And it would be ideal for young men and women who have never seen 16 ounces of water that can be safely consumed, or a hamburger, or a movie theater, or fields of flowers, or a lacrosse game, or mounds of food going cold on a Thanksgiving Day table, or an unfinished bottle of wine being recorked, or a color printer, or snow plows, or the Super Bowl. Forget about Frappachinos, let's try wheat and penicillin. While my heart goes out to the "lowly journalist on assignment", it goes out even more to humans who are killed each day by genocide-driven soldiers, or die from disease and starvation. But that is just me, I don't write for the Boston Globe.
Forget crazy luxuries like food, water and health care, give them computers. That way they can play solitaire while they starve to death, or create spreadsheets to track the UNICEF trucks who give food shipments to local warlords. I like the idea of cheap laptops so I can buy one for each of my kids and they can bang away on the keys and make funny shapes, but don?t even for a second think that your plan is going to solve any of the core problems of third world countries. Education, definitely. Laptops, give me a break.
Follow up to the Tom Brady post.
Ok, his grandmother died and that is sad. Anytime ANYONE dies it is sad, except for really bad people, but then poster-boy for all that is good comes out and says something like ?she?ll be watching down on us? and ?win this for gamma?. Good grief.
And then ESPN had a picture of Patriots coach Belichick and Albert Einstein and asked who more of a genius was. Let me get this straight. While I know the article was tongue-in-cheek, and anyone smart enough to make it out of junior high, which by the way excludes about 50% of Patriot fans, doesn?t really believe that a football coach is smarter than Einstein. They are comparing a man who has won 2 out of 3 Super Bowls and will probably win 3 out of 4, with someone who was the greatest scientist of the last 200 years and realized E=MC squared, came up with the idea and proof of the existence of atoms, invented quantum theory whatever that is, proposed the theory of relativity, contributed to the theory of statistical mechanics and won a Nobel prize for his explanation of photoelectric effect. Now, personally, I have no idea what any of that means, science was not my strong subject on any level, but I know that it probably, just a guess here, adds more to the betterment of human existence than coaching a bunch of large men.
So now I not only hear about the sainthood of Thomas Brady but the genius of Coach Belichick. On the heals of the Red Sox winning and BC (I went to anther Big East school) going undefeated. A very humbling time to be in Boston for a non-Boston fan.
By the way, my rant and rave aside, I am looking forward to the game. For the most part I like the Patriots because they play the way the Yankees play, to win. They keep their mouths shut (please Red Sox fans, no comments here, just this once, you won and let it go), play like champions and act like professionals. On the flip side, Philadelphia has great fans and is a great city (I spent a few months there for work) and I would like to see someone win a championship who has not won in a while (I know, I know, I am a hypocrite). I am interested to see what the Patriots defense does (zone or man to man), wonder if McNabb will stay to his success this year or start to run more and see if Westbrook returns punts, something that could make the game interesting. And oh yeah, I am interested in the commercials.
My friend Brian (Brian of Watertown) and I don't exactly see eye-to-eye when it comes to politics. Not a huge surprise living in a Blue State since people around here engage in the fun and sporty "car burning" when their team finally wins something but cannot for the life of them understand how anyone walking erect can vote for Bush, but Brian did send me something kind of funny. In a 'New England' sort of way.
"Today is Groundhog Day and the State of the Union Address. As Air America Radio pointed out, it is an ironic juxtaposition: one involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of little intelligence for prognostication -- and the other involves a groundhog."
Enough about Tom Brady already!! If I hear one more thing about how great of a guy he is and how he played with a fever and how mature of a player he is for being so young and blah blah blah. I get it. Tom Brady is the super hero of football. He can do no wrong. He is the most wonderful human being of our time. I am sick of it. Yeah, he is a good football player. Yeah, he is good looking and has tons of money. Sure, he gives good interviews. Yup, two Super Bowl MVP awards is pretty impressive. I agree, playing with a fever was impressive. But enough already. Can?t they talk about something else, like any of the other football players on the team? Or the other team. Ugh.
The Michael Jackson molestation trial begins today which brings my level of ?do I care? to about a zero for celebrity trials. I am more interested in the progress my mailman makes each day than I am in Michael Jackson and his life. Thriller was a great album but that was the 80s and a long long time ago.