A Monday Among Mondays

So, NY's governor is caught in a prostitution scandal. I was going to save this for my more political blog, but really, this is too juicy to not mention here, my main blog with more readers (I think). Aside from feeling betrayed by Spitzer, whom I voted for, I'm wondering about the chutzpah of a man who spent most of his career going after the criminal and unethical. He's been called "Mr. Clean." So for him to think possibly that he could get away with this just galls. And what? He couldn't find a mistress like other politicians? Sheesh. I'm pretty cynical when it comes to politics, but this stunned and disappointed me.

The BBC presents their Top 25 Putdowns. Link from Neatorama. My favorites:

• Arnold Rimmer - Red Dwarf. "Look, we all have something to bring to this discussion. But I think from now on the thing you should bring is silence."
• Edmund Blackadder - Blackadder II. To Lord Percy: "The eyes are open, the mouth moves, but Mr Brain has long since departed, hasn't he, Percy?"

and of course,

• Larry David - Curb Your Enthusiasm. "Switzerland is a place where they don't like to fight, so they get people to do their fighting for them while they ski and eat chocolate."

Still not feeling great, but the constant need to blow my nose has ceased. I'm counting my blessings.

Feeling:

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: politics

Top of the News

File this headline item in the NY Daily News under "Things I Don't Need to Know." I mean, it's not like I'll ever get to put her suggestions into practice with Tom.

I much rather dwell on how many Yankees (former and current) were named in the steroid probe report vs. former and current (I don't think there were any current) Mets.

And in weather news, Snow was Mostly No Go. I'm sure there was snow somewhere. There's some slushy white stuff around and if it freezes, there will be a lot of ice tomorrow, but mostly, all I saw and walked through was cold rain and sleet.


Feeling:

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: news

The Week Without an End

Actually, it wasn't as bad as other days this year so far, and the temps actually got bearable, so I can't complain. Much.

Anna Nicole Smith died. I don't want to give her any more attention in death than I gave her in life, which was none, but I feel kinda bad for all the people who used her as comic fodder, along with the media that sold trashy mags and papers by featuring her. Now the burden is squarely on the shoulders of Paris Hilton. Maybe Lindsey Lohan can do more to pick up the slack.

Well, at least Smith's death knocked the crazy astronaut story off the front page.

Feeling:

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: news

A Few Things

From Gothamist:

A man was arrested for damaging trees in Union Square Park, in Manhattan.

"Two Parks Enforcement officers caught him at 1:30AM, and the Parks Department said Sasson "was in the process of ripping branches off trees," adding that Sasson just "reached up into the tree branches and pulled off the limbs." And the "destruction or abuse for trees" is serious - that, coupled with his second-degree criminal mischief charges, could add up to seven years in jail."

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm thinking of the potential embarrassment in this. I can see the scene now. A prison, probably minimum security, a new prison is brought in and the other prisoners ask what he's in for. Would you want to tell your fellow cons that you ripped branches off trees?

Chocolate Game Consoles, on Candy Addict.

Van Gogh's "Starry Night" is the closest I get to having a favorite painting, so this cake version takes, well, the cake. Found on Boing Boing.

These folks really know how to celebrate chocolate.


Feeling:

~~~o0o~~~
links
chocolate

In the News

BIC sold its 100 billionth pen recently. I'm wondering how many of those I've bought over my lifetime, since I'm a BiC Round Stic fan. I read about this in the NY Daily News, but have found a nice online link for you. A bit of history about the company is included. I hadn't known that the design of BIC ballpoints was inspired by a wheelbarrow wheel. Oh well. 100,000,000,000 are a lot of pens.

This item tickled me for some reason: Bearproof food canisters tested by actual bears, which makes sense, of course, but the little article in the Daily News was nicely written. I liked the part about the grizzlies in the Bronx Zoo's Bear Den giving up trying to open some canisters after "a half hour of some intense clawing and biting," to the entertainment of lunchtime visitors to the zoo.

News items like that make it less stressful to read the paper that's otherwise filled with such tidbits as Time Magazine finding "discrepancies" in FEMA head Michael Brown's official biographies on the FEMA website and on FindLaw.com. Apparently, and no surprise given his amazing incompetence, he seems to have enhanced his resume, claiming to have served "as an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight," when, according to spokeswoman Claudia Deakins, he was an assistant to the actual manager in Edmund, OK, a job she said was "more like an intern. Department heads did not report to him." And a listing that he was a professor of political science at Central State University seems to have been very inflated. Carl Johnson , a spokesman for the University of Central Oklahoma, formerly Central State, said he was actually a student there. Wow, those sure are impeccable credentials for a man entrusted with overseeing emergency services for the entire US. I usually save the politics for Occasional Blog, but I figured a short bit here would be okay.

Feeling:

From the News

I normally would post some of these things on Occasional Blog, but since they're just bits of things, not essays, I'm posting them here to maintain this blog's rep for eclecticism and eccentricity.

Bernard Ebbers of Worldcom was sentenced to 25 years. I don't think I can adequately express how happy this makes me. I'm tired of bigshot financial scammers, thieves, and cheats getting wrist slapped for driving their companies into the ground and taking money out of stockholders' pockets. Let this sentence serve notice to the rest of the schemers out there. (*Disclaimer: Hubby and I owned Worldcom stock.)

In the "sometimes things go right" department: According to Newsweek (7/18/05) the National Braille Press (NBP), with help from Scholastic (the publisher of Harry Potter) and a lot of donations, will be selling Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in braille just a few days after the regular print hardcover comes out. Not only will it be sold for $29.99, but NBP is making the earlier books in the series available in braille for the price each of a paperback book. Now that's what I call a company with heart.

Okay, this one's for the women. I'll give you guys a chance to avert your eyes. Certain personal hygience products from a certain company now come in small pouches that supposedly don't make noise so that others in public restrooms won't know you're using them. I read about this in Newsweek a while back, in an article about product design innovations. Supposedly, this is something women wanted/needed. I say, WTF? I'm a woman. I have need of a certain product that every other woman between puberty and menopause uses or uses something similar. Why would I be embarrassed for anyone to know it's "that time of month." Sheesh. And it's not really all that quiet. It certainly isn't any less quiet that other sounds eminating from women's room stalls. If they told me, hey, this is biodegradable and the older ones weren't, I'd be praising them for their friendliness to the environment, but if they're trying to sell me on the quietness of the thing, I don't care. I happen to like the product. I don't care what it's wrapped in. And what's with the damn wings on the pads? The velcro-like strips on those make enough noise. Then again, so does the paper strip you pull off the pads. No, I'd say noise is the last thing I worry about.

So anyway, I went to the Kotex site, just to look and maybe see if they make the claim about the packaging there (no, I didn't find it), and was a bit stunned. The site is so perky. It has games. The desktop downloads really caught my eye. Things sure have changed since I first needed such products. Hell, the products are different, too. We used to need little "belts" to hold the things in place. Peoople look to computers and other electronic equipment as the real progress in technology, but some of us know better. The real progress has been in women's hygience products.