Tweetalarm is like Google Alert, only with Twitter
If you’re anything like me, you probably have more than a few keywords plugged in over at Google Alerts to find out if and when these keywords pop up on the World Wide Internet Web. With the popularity of Twitter, I’ve often wished there was something similar to Google Alerts for Twitter.
Now there is.
Tweetalarm is a free service that emails you imediately if and when certain keywords are tweeted. Check it out if this is the kind of thing that interests you.
Baseball players honor teammate killed by a drunk driver by dousing his jersey with beer
The Los Angeles Angels celebrated winning the AL West the other night by dousing the jersey of Williamsport High School graduate Nick Adenhart with beer. Adenhart was killed this past April after the vehicle he was traveling in was struck by 22-year-old Andrew Gallo. Not only was Gallo drunk, he was driving on a suspended license from a prior drunk driving conviction.
Gallo not only killed Adenhart, but two other people who were traveling with Adenhart.
It’s too bad that the Angles couldn’t come up with some other way of celebrating their big win that didn’t involve alcohol.
‘Jon & Kate Plus 8′ renamed ‘Kate Plus 8′
The train wreak of a TV show that is known as Jon & Kate Plus 8 has changed it’s name to just Kate Plus 8. Who didn’t see this coming? I figured the show was getting a name change as soon as Jon Gosselin left his wife Kate and started running around acting like a weirdo with girls practicably just out of high school.
Entertainers have to know their audience. They have to know what their audience expects of them and do their best to match those expectations. That means if you are an evangelical preacher, you can’t get caught buying methamphetamine from a gay prostitute like that self-hater Ted Haggard did. His audience, people that attended his church, would not put up with stuff that. He should have known that. Jon Gosselin’s audience consisted of married women in their 30’s and 40’s. He should have thought of them before he started running around wearing those crappy looking Ed Hardy clothes. His audience probably didn’t appreciate it much when he started publicly catting around with the 22-year old daughter of his wife’s plastic surgeon.
Hopefully Kate Gosselin will hit him up for a bazillion dollars a month in child support. How much do men have to pay for eight kids? Normally the only men that have to pay child support for that many kids play in the NFL.
The Music Balloon
I saw this speaker for the iPod (or any other audio device that has a 3.5mm jack) over at Unplugged and was immediately impressed with it’s awesomeness. Like most cool gadgets, it originates from Japan.
It comes in colors other than pink if that’s not your thing. Instead of using a battery, it comes with a USB cable to charge it for use. Looking at the specs, I don’t see the frequency spectrum that it encompasses, but something tells me that it falls short of 20Hz – 20,000Hz.
If you want one for yourself, it will run you ¥3,990 ($44.59).
Sarah Palin’s new book: ‘Going Rogue: An American Life’
Former vice-presidential candidate, former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin has picked a title for her upcoming memoir. It will be called, Going Rogue: An American Life.
On first glance, it seems like an incredibly silly title for an autobiography. Then again, perhaps the word rogue means something different to me than it does to most people. Having played Dungeons & Dragons in my youth, I identify the word rogue with the player character class that engages in sneak attacks. In the make-believe world of Dungeons & Dragons, a rogue is a thief. They pick locks and discover traps. They prefer to attack their opponents by stabbing them in the back.
In all the years I played Dungeons & Dragons, I don’t think I ever played a character that was a rogue. A rogue always seemed to me to be, I don’t know, a dick. A rogue was just not something I even wanted to pretend to be in the make-believe magical fantasy world of Dungeons & Dragons .
Can the word rogue be used without a negative connotation? No, I don’t think so. Merriam-Webster defines the word as a vagrant or a tramp, or a dishonest or worthless person.
So why then would Sarah Palin use the word to describe herself in her autobiography? Maybe, just maybe it’s because it she knows the word fits.
Roman Polanski arrested in Switzerland
Looks like Hollywood’s favorite kid rapist may be looking at the inside of a prison cell afterall. Director Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland on an international warrant shortly after arriving in Zurich for a film festival featuring his work.
From the New York Times:
Mr. Polanski was detained by the police Saturday upon his arrival at the Zurich airport, said Guido Balmer, a spokesman for the Swiss Federal Justice Department. The director was being held in provisional detention in preparation for a possible extradition to the United States based on an arrest warrant dating to 1978.
Mr. Polanski, 76, was convicted that year in a California court of unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl whom he had lured to the home of Jack Nicholson and drugged. Faced with a prison term, he fled the United States just before his sentencing.
Polanski has been living in France since he fled the United States. Polanski is a French citizen and France has a very limited extradition policy with the United States. Go figure.
At the time of the sexual assault, Polanski was 44-years old. He was photographing the 13-year old girl for the French edition of Vogue. After giving her a combination of champagne and quaaludes, he performed a series of sex acts upon her.
Needless to say, Roman Polanski is a dirtbag. Shame on him, shame on France for protecting him all these years, and shame on those that continued to employ him to direct movies.
Job seekers now outnumber openings six to one
I’m trying to have a positive attitude about my recent layoff, but when I read stories such as this one, it makes me wonder what the future holds. From the New York Times:
Despite signs that the economy has resumed growing, unemployed Americans now confront a job market that is bleaker than ever in the current recession, and employment prospects are still getting worse.
Job seekers now outnumber openings six to one, the worst ratio since the government began tracking open positions in 2000. According to the Labor Department’s latest numbers, from July, only 2.4 million full-time permanent jobs were open, with 14.5 million people officially unemployed.
You don’t have to be a mathematical genius to know that 14.5 million doesn’t go into 2.4 million very neatly. We as a nation have more people than we have jobs. What’s even worse is that our population level continues to increase by 150,000 people a month. That would mean we need to create at least that many new jobs each month just to stay even.
Obviously, that’s not happening.
Plaxico Burress goes to prison
The New York State Department of Correctional Services have released the official mugshot of one of their newest inmates, ex-New York Giants receiver Plaxico Burress. Not only did they take away his freedom for the next two years for accidentally shooting himself in the leg, they made him get rid of this chin hair.
Who knew they didn’t allow facial hair in prison? At least they don’t in New York prisons. Terrorist masterminds held down in Guantanamo Bay are allowed to look like they are members of ZZ Top. I guess that’s different because they hate America and they grow beards because it’s part of their religion, the same religion that inspired them to send airliners packed with innocent people into buildings also packed with innocent people on a September morning.
I feel bad for Plaxico Burress and that says a lot because I’ve never liked him all that much. Not when he played at Michigan State, not when he played with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and not when he played with the New York Giants. I feel bad for him because he has to sit in prison for the next two years simply because he accidentally shot himself in the leg. Prisons should be for criminals. How does shooting yourself in the leg make you a criminal?
Don’t get me wrong, I think Plaxico Burress did an incredibly stupid thing. I think taking a loaded handgun into New York City to go clubbing in an asinine thing to do, especially when you simply stuff it into the waist of your pants and don’t engage the handgun’s safety. It was truly a boneheaded thing to do. That doesn’t mean I think he should go to prison for it.
Putting a bullet in his own leg should have been his punishment, not prison.
Spanish Prime Minister introduces the world to his goth daughters
The State Department uploaded this photo of Barack and Michelle Obama with Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and his family to it’s Flickr page.
Yes, the State Department has a Flickr page.
The photo is somewhat remarkable in that it marks the first time the Spanish Prime Minister’s children have appeared in a public photo. Spanish law allows him to ban the Spanish media from publishing the photos of 16-year-old Laura or 13-year old Alba. Because of this fact, nobody in Spain knew that his daughters are into the goth lifestyle.
Evidently the Spanish Prime Minister didn’t appreciate the fact that the State Department let the world in on the fact that his daughters shop at Hot Topic and enjoy listening to The Cure. That might be, but his oldest daughter wears knee-high leather combat boots.
How long did he think he could keep that a secret?
Smoking is now officially no longer cool
Kids today need no further proof that smoking is bad than to see this photo of Jon Gosselin sitting on top a ATV with a real life cancer stick dangling out of his mouth. See kids, smoking is so stupid, the Hawaiian looking guy on that reality show with all the kids does it. Smoking ain’t cool, Jon Gosselin does it.
It’s a powerful anti-smoking message to send to our nation’s youth, or to anyone else that doesn’t want to look like a tard. Like Jon Gosselin.
Punching up the old resume
I spent the better part of the morning punching up my resume. Now that I am gainfully unemployed and must compete with a good many of my fellow Americans who have also been laid off by their employers, I figured that I needed to tune up my resume. It’s the first time since getting out of the Air Force in 1994 that I have had a definite ending date for my most recent employer. Up until now, it’s always simply said “Present” for an ending date. Now it shows “September 2009″.
It’s the first time since 1994 that I have had to look for a job when I didn’t already have a job.
I noticed while updating my resume that for every company I’ve ever worked for except one, the name of the company changed while I worked for them. My former employers were all acquired by other companies and without exception, took on the name of the company that acquired them. The one company that didn’t change names while I was there, Gretag Imaging, instead simply went out of business shortly after I left. Walmart Photo became Fujicolor. Moore Business Communication Services became RR Donnelly. My last employer started out with one name and then later became something else.
I wonder if this is just the way it will always be. Will corporations trade companies back and forth like bad pennies? Looking at my own job history, I have no reason to believe that the company that eventually hires me will remain that company for very long. If history is any indicator, it will become something else.
Glenn Beck’s new book
I received an email this morning from Borders informing me that I need to redeem my $5.00 in Borders Bucks before the end of the month or I’m going to lose them. Contained in the email was a list of some of the new books coming out this week. One of the books caught my attention, but how could it not? It featured a photo of Fox News host and conservative talk radio host Glenn Beck decked out in a uniform from the old Soviet Union. The book is entitled, Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government.
The book claims to teach people how to talk obnoxious idiot liberals when they say that guns are evil or that the rich don’t pay enough taxes.
Didn’t Ann Coulter already write this book?
I’m not really sure why Beck is wearing a Soviet military uniform or why he has such a dumb smirk on his face. Why is he sticking his bottom lip out? I know that when Ann Coulter first wrote this book, she didn’t don a military uniform. I’m guessing that the implication by Beck is that if you are a liberal, you are somehow just like a Soviet era communist. I’m guessing that it’s the same logic that states since President Obama wants every American to have access to affordable, quality health care, he is just like Adolf Hitler.
How ironic is it that the first time Glenn Beck wears a military uniform, it’s from the old Soviet Union?
One of the problems with continuous copyright protection
The children of the late great comic book artist Jack Kirby are taking steps to legally acquire at least partial ownership of the copyrights to many of the comic book characters their father helped to create.
From the Los Angeles Times:
The four children of Kirby, who co-created a number of Marvel’s best-known super-heroes, including the X-Men, Fantastic Four, Thor and the Hulk, have served so-called notices of copyright termination for 45 characters to Marvel Entertainment, Disney (which recently agreed to buy Marvel for $4 billion), Sony Pictures (which owns movie rights to Spider-Man), 20th Century Fox (owner of movie rights to the Fantastic Four and X-Men), Paramount Pictures (which has a film distribution deal for four upcoming Marvel-produced films) and Universal Pictures (which has distribution rights to Hulk movies).
Jack Kirby co-created Thor? I thought Thor was a mythical Norse god that was “created” centuries ago by guys that wore horns on their head and sailed around in big wooden boats.
In a perfect world, works created years ago by Jack Kirby would now be in the public domain and nobody, including Marvel, Disney, Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox, or even the legal heirs of Kirby, would be able to claim ownership of something created so long ago. The same applies to Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.
They should be in the public domain too.
I guess I don’t really understand why Kirby’s adult children should have any claim to work done by their father. To the best of my knowledge, they didn’t so much as sharpen his pencil or refill his inkwell. Why should they be able to claim ownership to something he created?
I’m not faulting his adult children. They are simply working within the absurd reality that is the U.S. copyright laws. Much like how they didn’t create any of the work in question, they didn’t create any of the silly copyright laws that we have either.
As the great philosopher Ice T once said, “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.”
Obama open to newspaper bailout
President Obama told the editors of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Toledo Blade in an interview that he would be open to the idea of assisting struggling newspapers by awarding them tax breaks if they were willing to restructure as nonprofit businesses.
From Michael O’Brien’s blog at The Hill:
Obama said that good journalism is “critical to the health of our democracy,” but expressed concern toward growing tends in reporting — especially on political blogs, from which a groundswell of support for his campaign emerged during the presidential election.
I agree with Obama on this. Good journalism is critical to the health of our democracy. The problem I have is that of all the words I could use to describe the current state of journalism in this country, “good” is not one of them.
Journalism in this country is bad and is only getting worse.
One has to look no further than to the build up leading to the Iraq invasion to see just how bad journalism is in this country. If we had a competent Forth Estate in this country, perhaps the American people would have questioned why we were going to invade a country that posed us no harm, a country that was in no way involved in the terror attacks of 911.
So yes, good journalism is critical to the health of a democracy, but at no time should bad journalism be accepted as good journalism’s replacement.
Walking like House has ruined Hugh Laurie’s knees
Hugh Laurie, the British actor that plays the not-so-lovable Doctor House on the hit Fox TV show House told the Daily Mail that walking with a severe limp is creating havoc on his 50 year old knees. In fact, he even said that it might require him to quit the show.
I’ve always wondered what the constant limping did to the actor’s knees and/or hip. I know from personal experience that when an injury causes you to limp or walk differently, it often causes pain or even an actual secondary injury somewhere else.
Would Hugh Laurie actually quit the show because of it? I’ve got to think that the part of Doctor Gregory House has got to be a dream job for an actor like Laurie, knee pain or not. Perhaps the Daily Mail got that part wrong. It wouldn’t be the only thing they got wrong in the article. For instance:
As Dr House, he walks with a limp in his right leg – the result of a gunshot wound.
Ah, no, that’s not what caused the limp. House experienced a muscle infarction in his right thigh. Be the time it was properly diagnosed, the muscle surrounding the infarction was dead and had to be cut out. He’s got a huge chunk of this thigh missing.
If it was me, I’d just get the entire leg amputated. The only thing worse than not being able to walk normally is to be in constant pain.
International Talk Like a Pirate Day
Yesterday was International Talk Like a Pirate Day. At least that’s what I read on the World Wide Internet Web. It’s the special day of the year when everyone in the world is supposed to talk like a pirate.
I don’t mean the current day pirates from Somali pirates that hijack commercial ships in the Indian Ocean. That would be easier in that I’m sure that there is audio somewhere of some of these Somali pirates talking. Granted, it probably isn’t in English, but at least you could hear these pirates speak and try to somehow mimic the way they talk.
With the pirates from the 18th century that sailed under the Jolly Roger skull and bones, it’s not so easy. There are no audio recordings of these pirates speaking. The truth is, we have no idea how 18th century pirates spoke.
My guess is that pirates sounded a lot like everyone else of the era. They probably spoke the same way that they spoke before they became pirates. Similarly, Somali pirates probably speak the same way that they did when they were simple fishermen.
So when people “talk like a pirate” what are they actually doing? They are talking like the pirates they’ve heard over the years watching cheesy, crappy pirate movies. Obviously, those are the only type of pirates they’ve ever heard.
The $148 space camera
Two M.I.T. students, Justin Lee and Oliver Yeh, constructed a special camera rig using nothing more than a weather balloon, a Styrofoam cooler, a basic Canon A470 point and shoot camera, a GPS-enabled prepaid cell phone so that they could track the setup when it came back to Earth, and some instant hand warmers to keep the camera and the cell phone from freezing.
Their result is this stunning photo that shows the curvature of the Earth.
My hope is that they can take this photo and present it to The View co-host Sherri Shepherd who said on a recent episode of The View that she did not know if the Earth was flat or not. I believe that if Shepherd had access to this photo that clearly shows the Earth curving, she would finally have enough information to formulate an educated opinion as to whether the Earth is flat or not.
If that were to be the case, then I say the $148 was well spent.
Go ahead and add one more to the unemployment numbers
Yesterday afternoon I was called into my manager’s office and informed that my employment was being terminated effective immediately. I was told that it was solely because the company needed to decrease the employee head count.
It’s not like I didn’t see this coming.
Until yesterday afternoon, I worked for a company that manufactured electronic inverters used to control industrial 3-phase A.C. motors. I worked in the service department. I was responsible for inspecting, troubleshooting, and repairing inverters that came back for warranty. About 18 months ago, we were acquired by a company in Finland. Initially I thought it was a good thing. I then soon realized that it probably wasn’t. For one thing, the new company didn’t believe in doing it’s own aftermarket service. At it’s facilities in Europe, all aftermarket service was outsourced to a third-party vendor.
It was soon announced that the new company would be building a new facility to replace the one we were currently in. The lease was going to expire soon and the new company decided that it would be better to just build a whole new facility. When the new facility was announced and the floor plans were revealed, I couldn’t help but notice that it lacked a service department. When I brought this fact up to management, I was told not to worry. I was told that the reason there was not a service department on the floor plan was because it had not yet been decided where exactly it would be placed.
There were other signs over the last twelve months that my services might no longer be needed. I updated my resume and hoped for the best. I figured that if I was to be let go, it would probably happen next month when the new facility was scheduled to open. If for no other reason, I figured they would at least keep me until everything had been moved over to the new building.
It’s not all bad. At least I’m eligible for unemployment insurance. In the past when I have looked for a new job, it was always a hassle finding time to go to interviews. That is no longer a problem.
I’ve also been meaning to organize my sock drawer.
Raising psoriasis awareness
There recently was a fashion show sponsored by two pharmaceutical companies, Amgen and Wyeth, featuring eight people that have psoriasis. Tim Gunn from Project Runway served as the host.
What was the purpose of the fashion show? From the fashion show’s official website:
The fashion show was the culmination of an awareness campaign designed to help people with plaque psoriasis get more information about managing their disease and feel more confident in their everyday style.
Though I have plaque psoriasis and I’ve blogged quite a bit about having it, I don’t really understand why it’s important to raise awareness about psoriasis. I blog about having it mostly to vent, not to raise awareness. You either have it or you don’t. It’s a genetic disease that affects your autoimmune system. The result is dry, scaly patches on the skin that can bleed and itch. It can be quite painful and quite debilitating. I get it on my hands, but many people get it on the bottom of their feet. I sometimes have a hard time picking things up and doing simply routine things. People who get it on their feet have a hard time walking.
I don’t see how raising awareness about psoriasis changes anything. Raising awareness isn’t going to help me tie my shoes in the morning. It isn’t going to help people with cracked feet walk across the room without experiencing excruciating pain.
I guess I don’t get it.
On the other hand, I see why it’s important to raise awareness with other diseases such as AIDS or breast cancer. People can learn about AIDS and take that knowledge and use it to decide to refrain from activities that raise the risk of contracting HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. When you raise the awareness of breast cancer, women learn the importance of early detection, either via the self exam or the mammogram.
With these two examples, awareness literally saves lives. With psoriasis, that’s not the case.
Adding a login to the header in WordPress
If you’ve been reading this blog for any period of time, I don’t have to tell you that I change the theme here quite often. One of the reasons I have a blog is because I like to toy around with it and play around with the code. In fact, it’s probably the main reason I have a blog.
Something I like in any theme I use is having a login located in the header. The problem is, not every theme has this useful feature. As problems go, it’s not really a major one in that it’s very easy to insert the needed code into any theme header. All you have to do is open the “header.php” file in the WordPress theme editor and insert the following code where you would like the handy login to appear:
<?php wp_meta(); ?>
<?php wp_register(); ?>
<li><?php wp_loginout(); ?></li>
It’s as easy as that. I generally insert it in the same span that contains the links to Home and any pages I have published.
Teabaggers are confusing
People associated with the Taxed Enough Already (TEA) crowd held a rally yesterday morning in Washington D.C. to protest against health care reform and people were seen passing out these printed signs that referred to the recent passing of Senator Ted Kennedy.
Why do these people hate President Barack Obama so much? I just don’t get it. Is it because he raised their taxes? Unless they earn more than $250,000 a year, Obama actually lowered their taxes. In fact, nobody, even the richest of the rich, have not had their taxes raised under President Obama.
I just don’t understand these people. One minute they whine and cry about the Federal government being incapable of doing anything well, the next they are waiving the flag and demanding that everyone join them in singing God Bless America.
It gets confusing.
Michael Jordan acts like a total jerk at his Hall of Fame induction ceremony
Michael Jordan was enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts yesterday and he didn’t miss the opportunity to prove once again to anyone noticing that he can be a jerk. From Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports:
This wasn’t a Hall of Fame induction speech, but a bully tripping nerds with lunch trays in the school cafeteria. He had a responsibility to his standing in history, to players past and present, and he let everyone down. This was a night to leave behind the petty grievances and past slights – real and imagined. This was a night to be gracious, to be generous with praise and credit.
“M.J. was introduced as the greatest player ever and he’s still standing there trying to settle scores,” one Hall of Famer said privately later.
Jordan didn’t hurt his image with the NBA community, as much as he reminded them of it. “That’s who Michael is,” one high-ranking team executive said. “It wasn’t like he was out of character. There’s no one else who could’ve gotten away with what he did tonight. But it was Michael, and everyone just goes along.”
The World Wide Internet Web is full of people that will proclaim loudly that Michael Jordon is the greatest basketball player that has ever lived. I’m not one of those people. Though there’s no denying that Michael Jordon is an extremely gifted player, basketball is a team game. Players like Larry Bird and Magic Johnston played the game the way it should be played. They played basketball as a team game. They played basketball in a way that made their teammates better. Jordan never did.
Though Jordan is 3rd on the all time scoring list with 32,292 points, he’s 35th on the all time assists list with 5,633. As a guard, he should have racked up a lot more assists.
It’s a pity that Jordon’s incompetence as a basketball executive couldn’t somehow be factored into the Jordan legacy and perhaps even delay his Hall of Fame enshrinement. It could be argued that Jordan is being enshrined as a player and not as a basketball executive, but I would argue that one has to look at his entire basketball career. Pete Rose, the all time hit leader in Major League Baseball, will most likely never be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame because he bet on baseball not as a player, but when he was a manager. When people look at Jordan’s career, they only look at what he did on the court.
That’s too bad.
Richard Seymour must not like the way he looks in silver and black
The New England Patriots traded defensive end Richard Seymour to the Oakland Raiders for the Raider’s 2011 first round draft pick. Seymour only has one year left on his contract and the Raiders being the Raiders, the draft pick the Patriots will be getting should be extremely high.
It very well may be the first pick of the 2011 draft.
The problem is not that the Raiders gave way too much to the Patriots (they did), it’s that Seymour has not even seen fit to grace the Raiders with his presence. So far, he’s been a big no-show at the Raiders’ training camp.
From the San Jose Mercury News
Defensive end Richard Seymour missed practice Tuesday for the second straight day, and he still hasn’t given any public indication on whether he intends to honor the trade by the New England Patriots.
Raiders coach Tom Cable said he remains hopeful that Seymour will show up as soon as he gets his affairs in order.
“I don’t want to comment on (Seymour’s status) until we have something that’s done and concrete,” Cable said.
The deal was done Sunday, as far as the league and the Patriots are concerned. The league approved the trade Sunday afternoon, and Patriots coach Bill Belichick already has filled Seymour’s roster spot.
“We don’t have the rights to Richard, so I can’t really speak to that,” Belichick said in his first public comment since the trade. “There isn’t really anything I can say about him or his situation. I’ll pass on that.”
It’s up to the Raiders to set a time frame for Seymour to report. The Collective Bargaining Agreement doesn’t require a traded player to report to his new team by a certain time.
Even if this trade lacked the complication of Seymour refusing to report, the Raiders are getting hosed in this trade. What team other than the Silver and Black would trade away a future top first round draft pick for a player with only one year on his contract?
None, that’s who.
Republican congressman calls President Obama a liar during joint session of Congress
Was it a town hall meeting or was it presidential address to a joint session of Congress?
I thought it was the later, but Representative Joe Wilson, a Republican form South Carolina, shouted at the president from his fifth-row seat: “You lie!”
So what did Rep. Wilson think President Obama was lying about? That the proposed government health care plan would include coverage for illegal immigrants.
It of course would not, but a good many Republicans have been saying that it would because they know how much their constituents hate illegal immigrants. Except of course their constituents that employ illegal immigrants because they are willing to work for far less than the prevailing wage that people who are in this country legally expect to be paid.
Representative Joe Wilson later apologized for his outburst.
I think this incident only illustrates why we wont be getting health care reform anytime soon from our elected leaders in Washington. It doesn’t matter what the facts are. If the Republicans believe or feel that health care reform would provide coverage to illegal immigrants or that it would create special death panels that would dictate who gets health care and who doesn’t, there is nothing that can be said that will make them believe or feel otherwise. That fact that Wilson would shout that the President of the United States was lying while he was speaking to a joint session of Congress says quite a lot.
Facts don’t trump feelings or beliefs.
Tila Tequila is allergic to alcohol?
Tila Tequila is disputing the claim of San Diego Chargers linebacker and steroid abuser Shawne Merriman that she was drunk the night he and she had their physical altercation and that he was only trying to restrain her from getting behind the wheel and possibly killing you and your children. Tila Tequila says that she was not drunk. In fact, she claims that it’s a well known fact that she is allergic to alcohol. She said it on Twitter so it must be true:
I am allergic to alcohol. It has been publicly known for years. That is how I got the name Tila ‘Tequila’ cuz the irony. I can’t drink.
So she has the last name of Tequila not because she likes to throw the Mexican liqueur back like a rich kid on spring break, but because she is physically incapable of consuming alcohol.
How does one know they are allergic to alcohol? Do the symptoms include getting stupid looking tattoos you wish afterwords you didn’t get and waking up the next day with an extremely bad headache? If so, I may be allergic to alcohol too.
Shawne Merriman chokes reality star girlfriend
San Diego Chargers star linebacker and Maryland alumni Shawne Merriman was arrested on Sunday for allegedly choking and throwing girlfriend Tila Tequila, a woman that somehow got famous on MySpace and then parlayed that fame into a gig on an MTV reality show.
Being that Merriman is a San Diego Charger, I thought the only choking he did was in the post season.
It also goes to show what I know about the California legal system. I didn’t know it was illegal to choke Tila Tequila.
It’s a good thing Michael Jackson is made from mostly man-made substances
If you thought that Michael Jackson was buried shortly after his memorial service nearly two months ago, you would be wrong. He will be buried tonight starting at 7 p.m. at Forest Lawn cemetery in Glendale, California. I guess it’s a good thing that at the time of his death, most of his body parts had been replaced with plastic and other non-organic substances.
If he was a regular person, he would really start to stink by now.
Singer Gladys Knight will perform. I didn’t even know that she was still alive. Hasn’t Michael Jackson’s death already involved enough musical performances? Just put him in the ground and be done with it.
David Wright’s gigantic helmet
A lot of people are making fun of New York Mets third basemen David Wright’s gigantic helmet, and rightfully so. The helmet makes him look completely stupid. I don’t know if it’s because his helmet is just too big, or that his body is incredibly small.
He’s wearing this contraption because he was hit in the head with a pitch a few weeks ago by Matt Cain of the San Fransisco Giants. Wright went down hard and stayed down for a couple of minutes. He was eventually able to leave the field under his own power and the Mets put him on the 15-day disabled list. He suffered a concussion and the fear is that if he’s hit in the head again, the concussion will be worse. That’s the way concussions are, each one is progressively worse.
This new helmet is supposed to give his head more protection than the standard MLB batting helmet.
I think the problem with this helmet is that the designers tried to make it look sort of like a baseball cap. Back in the olden times, batters went to bat without a helmet, they simply wore the same wool cap that they wore when they played defense. When helmets first appeared in MLB, they looked just like wool caps, only they were hard plastic. Over the years, they slowly evolved into safer helmets, yet they have retained the look of a baseball cap.
I think that’s a mistake.
They should just design a safe helmet and not worry about making it look sort of like a baseball cap. No matter what they do, it’s not going to look like a baseball cap so they should just stop.
My brother the hero
I’ve always been impressed with the accidental hero, the person who just so happens to be in the right place at the right time and does something totally outside their normal frame of operation for the selfless betterment of others. Yesterday my brother Tim Rottman proved to be one of those special people.
My sister-in-law Stephanie wrote the following:
Today while out working, Tim was the first person to arrive at a house fire. When the neighbors told him that people were inside he broke the glass on their door with a brick and went inside. Once inside he successfully rescued …an elderly woman and a young boy. He then went on to rescue their scared German Shepherd who was hiding under the house. Then, he went back to work! I love this man!
My brother is not a firefighter. He’s not a former Navy SEAL. He’s not what I would call an adrenaline junkie. He’s a father and he’s a husband. He’s a son and he’s a brother. He’s a small business owner. He likes to watch Formula 1 racing and drink Guinness. He’s just a decent guy who saw smoke and wondered if people needed help. He went into a house that was on fire and crawled around in the smoke to save people he did not know.
There needs to be a word for people like him. The word “hero” just doesn’t seem to cut it.
Southern California is on fire!
Like a lot of people, I’ve been watching the wildfires around Los Angeles. When you see something like this, it makes you realize just how little we puny humans control this planet.
With these wildfires wreaking havoc in the Los Angeles area, it’s probably not the best time to take a much needed vacation in the Southland. With that said, can you guess where Sheri and I are flying to this Friday?
Brett Favre is a dirty player
Last night’s pre-season game between the Minnesota Vikings and the Houston Texans featured Vikings quarterback Brett Favre lining up wide left as a receiver in the “wildcat” package. Vikings receiver Percy Harvin takes the direct snap and runs with the ball towards the left. Texans safety Eugene Wilson is then taken out of the play by Farve who delivers an illegal crack block directly at Harvin’s knees.
A flag is thrown and Wilson is on the ground in obvious pain. Does Farve go over to Wilson to say anything or to see if just how hurt he is? No, he just walks on by like the pill popping, cheap shot artist that he obviously is.
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Books I Am Reading
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Music I Am Listening To
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- Kucinich caves on health care reform. Will now vote for the non-public option health care reform bill. http://bit.ly/9t4gNI
- Peter Graves has died - http://bit.ly/blfTde #cnn
- Courage? Really? http://is.gd/axTwj
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