ASHLEY-GATE

Did anyone catch Ashlee's screw-up on SNL? Apparently, the wrong taped vocals started playing when it came time for the not-Jessica to perform her second song. Ashlee oh-so-cleverly goofed around for ten seconds and walked off stage. Great recovery, kid, you're a star! Don't let anyone not in your family tell you otherwise.

SCORCHED EARTH

Add Krugman to the list of 'Times columnists who would destroy the Republic in order to "save" it. Now he says the elections are already rigged by the all-powerful Republican/Bush cabal.

So the Yanks lost. Big deal. I'm more upset that the Sox are going to the series. Not a big fan of Boston, I am.

Gonna be out of the city this weekend. So, next weekend is our official last weekend as residents of the great Borough of Manhattan. <sigh>

LITTLE BOY IN A BIG WORLD

Suddenly, the world seems like a bigger, more frightening place without my Bubby.

FINGERED

The latest campaign Brouhaha over John Kerry's "Outing" of Lynne Cheney seems ridiculously overblown to me. Of course, in a close election like this one, everything gets ridiculously overblown. Like the notion that either candidate will measurably impact your life right now, for instance. Some truths:

• You won't get drafted.
• Your tax bill won't change -drastically.
• We'll still be in Iraq on November 3rd, 2004 and November 3, 2005 for that matter.
• Israelis and Palestinians will still hate each other.
• We'll all still hate strongly dislike the French.
• Lynne Cheney will still be gay.

I mean, really. What did Kerry do? He did not slander anyone -not even close. We all knew Lynne was gay. If we didn't before the campaign we sure as hell did after the Vice-Presidential debate. Like the issue of who did what during the Vietnam years, this issue is just random campaign noise to me, to be treated and discarded as such and in no way an issue of any import.

The larger "truth" that I'm beginning to realize is that the Democratic claim of Republican dirty tricks is not wholly unfounded -with a caveat. The Republican campaign is only doing what the Democratic rank and file routinely perpetrate : Mercilessly slander and libel/label the opposition. For every Karl (that's with a K, as is Marx) Rove, there's a Dan Rather; for each swift boat vet ad there's a Michael Moore. To insist that either side has a monopoly on the truth is nonsensical. If you have any gray matter at all, you'll just need to figure it all out for yourself. And for G-d's sake, watch more than one news channel and read more than one newspaper on a regular basis. If you don't, you'll elect what you deserve. It's called due diligence, exercise it!

GOOD READ DEPT: Deconstructing Bob Herbert. I never much cared for Mr. Herbert's columns anyways. He's not only a glass-is-half-empty kind of guy, he's a glass-is-broken-and-leaking-water-like-a-sieve kind of guy. Mr. Herbert doesn't seem to have ever met a party he couldn't rain on.

SAVED!

Wife & I watched Saved! last night on DVD. A funny, dark coming-of-age teen movie with a bunch of wild twists. RECOMMENDED.

Saw this cute magnet poster in my doctor's office yesterday.

BROOKS

I find myself reading David Brooks more and more these days. He seems like a level-headed guy without an axe to grind -a rarity for an op-ed columnist in the New York Times. I like his point blank assesment of the differences in vision of the (two) presidential candidates he makes today.

ROUNDUP

It's good to be in D.C. The latest jibjab yuckfest.

SNL is looking weak this season. Looks like Amy is the only cast member not just phoning it in.

Heather, on Scrubs is a nice fit. UPGRADE!

Ooh! Bill Shatner has a new album! yay! Many years ago, my buddy Steve and I settled on the Shat as the leading candidate for Supreme Leader of our hypotherical new age religion/cult/internet business: Religion 2.0. We never got past the beer soaked planning sessions on that one, though..

Topher is short for Christopher? I DID NOT KNOW THAT!

Why did the rat cross Riverside Drive? I guess we'll never know...

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT...

From The Stewardess Monologues::

I just love it when passengers get on the plane and they all look in the cockpit. Wouldn't it be great if the pilots were sitting in there, one reading a book titled "SO YOU WANT TO FLY?", and the other holding a broken switch in his hand with a look of confusion on his face?

another gem:

Frequent Fliers: why can everything be justified by how many miles they have? "Sir, you simply cannot be smacking around a flight attendant like that. You can't. Oh? Super Gold status? Yes, well ... that IS a lot of miles. You certainly can slap a flight attendant, sir. Yes, you can.

MISCELLANEOUS

Dunno why Grand Central (Train) Station could be considered a good venue for selling cars. Also, a dead ringer for David E. Davis Jr.  was standing around by the cars. I wonder if it was really him?

Via Ned:

Electoral Vote Predictor collates data from polls across the country to predict the outcome of the electoral vote. The maps are clear and informative, showing which states are near-balance, and which are clearly on one side or the other.

UPDATE: Official Virgin Galactic Homepage

MONEY QUOTE

From What the Bubble Got Right, by Paul Graham:

Indeed, that's practically the definition of a nerd. I found myself talking recently to someone from Hollywood who was planning a show about nerds. I thought it would be useful if I explained what a nerd was. What I came up with was: someone who doesn't expend any effort on marketing himself.

A nerd, in other words, is someone who concentrates on substance. So what's the connection between nerds and technology? Roughly that you can't fool mother nature. In technical matters, you have to get the right answers. If your software miscalculates the path of a space probe, you can't finesse your way out of trouble by saying that your code is patriotic, or avant-garde, or any of the other dodges people use in nontechnical fields.

BUH-BYE, FROM SPACE!

Or, soon you'll be able to get stale peanuts and beer while you orbit the earth. Richard Branson has just announced the first commercial (that I know of) spaceline. Virgin Galactic, of course. If you haven't been following the exciting X-Prize contest -wherein the first person to successfully launch a 3-man vehicle into space and repeat the feat within two weeks with the same vehicle gets $10 million- the first try for the prize is set to lift-off tomorrow. You can read more about the Spaceship One entry here.

GOOD READ: Brooks on the power of the vote (not what you'd expect.)

UPDATE: Kevin has renewed his commitment to blogging. Let's hope he'll continue...

AWW: Hanging with Mr. Squirrel.

LI'L BOW WOW

Observation I made last night: Dogs are like people. It's always the wee doggie causing all the trouble. I mean, when you see a toy breed of some sort snapping and hollering at a mastiff, you gotta wonder: What's the little dude thinking? I mean, Marmaduke can swallow you whole and burp you out little man! Most of the time, the big dog justs sits there and takes it, or doesn't even acknowledge the little pest. Isn't it the same old story everywhere? We can learn a lot from our four-legged friends.

JUNK SCIENCE: Or, what those dudes behind the counter at fast food joints do to kill time. Hat tip: Bob.

Run Peter, run!

SUBURBIA

It's official, wife & I will be suburbanites as of November 1. We've closed a deal on a shweet rental in Passaic, New Joisey (what exit? dunno.) We're also the soon-to-be proud owners of one of these parental unit transportation devices. I feel so grown up! Oh, where are my manners? A belated happy new year to my Jewish friends and a very healthy and happy Sunday morning to the rest of you!

SHADES OF STAR WARS: EPISODE I

Apologies for the misleading headline, I just read this opinion piece by David Brooks in the 'Times. (hat tip: Chrenkoff.) The diplomatic situation surrounding the Darfur genocide reminds me of what (then) Senator Palpatine railed against in the Grand Galactic Senate: the pithy inaction of the bureaucrats. This stands in marked relief to the "unilateral" action taken in Iraq. Not to belabor the point -which is well taken- but we should be vigilant: Palpatine eventually showed his true evil self as a twisted Sith Lord. Any chance, say, Dick Cheney can shoot lighting out of his fingertips? Hell, if he could, I'd definitely vote for him!

UPDATE: Krazy Karma file: James Taranto of Wall Street Journal.com's Opinion Journal just made the comparison between John Kerry and C-3PO! Great minds think alike, I suppose. You know, I recall hearing that there was a movement afoot in the late '70's to draft George Lucas as a religious figurehead. If, indeed, so much of modern politics can be divined from his Star Wars saga, perhaps this should be revisited?

FASHION: from Shmatas.com. Hat tip: Jewlicious.

THE KID SPEAKS

Kid Rock makes a valid political point (!)

SHIVER ME TIMBERS: This'll spook ya!

MIDDLE ACT

I decided the post that I had previously put here with the same title is a little to rant-ish, so I'm removing it. You can still access the original text here if you really want. My whole point for posting "MIDDLE ACT" was that it just we seem to be in the middle act of a three act play regarding the Iraq situation. Then I got a little carried away. To much news, not enough time...

NOW THAT'S A SPICY MEATBALL

For those of you who turned down a Hummer because its too small. Wife & I are looking into one of these babies for when we get one of these babies. Any suggestions?

ALSO: Very interesting Yahoo! search shortcuts. Hat tip: Danny Sullivan, via Jeremy Zawodny.

ON POLITICS: I've taken it upon myself to actually read the Democratic Party platform for 2004 and the Republican Party platform for 2004 (note: links are for dowloading Adobe PDF files.) If the election is as important as its being hyped to be (what election isn't?) I figure I should at least learn what the candidates actually stand for from the horses' (or, insert favorite quardruped here) mouths rather than the fickle and innacurate big media outlets.

DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY

I've been asked how come I -geek that I am- don't have a digital camera many a time. To which I dutifully replied: "What for?." With my nifty little Konica Revio APS (Advantix) camera I can take sharp pictures, have them developed with Kodak's awesome PerfectTouch processing AND have them available online at PictureCenter. I may have to rethink that in light of some new developments.

First of all, I've been most impressed with Picasa, a free photo organizing tool from Google that passes the Aunt Tillie test or, in my case the Max test. (Max is my stepdad.) Picasa, by virtue of its adopted family, also works well with blogger, hence the ability to easily post photos to a weblog using the Picasa's slick Hello sharing tool. Which allows me to do things like this. Jeremy notes, however, that if you use any operating system other than Windows, however, Picasa just isn't for you. Which brings me to flickr, which creates a community of photo sharing people. I'm pleased that flickr gives you granular access to security. Don't want weirdos getting pictures of me or my family for nefarious purposes now, do we? However, flickr seems geared towards sharing lo-res pictures online, and not towards the higher quality photos we've come to expect from developed film. More on that as I continue to investigate...

How did I get to this point? It all really began with my frustrating experience with CVS.com's online photo center. I've been having my films developed with Kodak processing at CVS for years, and have amassed quite a digital library on their site. As of August 1st, however, CVS stopped offering PictureCenter. I really liked PictureCenter because I could order my prints and pick them up at my nearby CVS for pennies, no shipping changes included. Now I haven't lost access to my PictureCenter archives mind you, I just can't add to the archive with any new rolls of film or -and this is the big bummer- migrate the archive to a bona-fide Kodak.com account. Since the CVS site is obviously a co-branded Kodak site, this last point really ticked me off. As it stands, I'm still using the Kodak PictureCenter, I just have to bring my film in to develop at a local film & camera store instead. My holy grail is to have complete access to all my photo archives in high quality in one location with unlimited bandwidth and storage. So far, I haven't seen any compelling alternative to local storage using Picasa, although I'm told Yahoo Photos is quite good.

HEH: Insanity Test.

REPUBLICAN'S SECRET SPEECHWRITER OUTED

Yes, It's Jeff Foxworthy! If you say...You are (not)... Bush did it, Zell did it, Rudy did it. It's definitely a pattern. Who knew Blue Collar Comedy Tour had such an impact on our political spectrum.

SIDEBAR: I just purchased a Jim Breuer DVD on DeepDiscountDVD.com. Both comedian and website are highly recommended. I actually had the pleasure of watching my wife completely lose it during his child birthing bit.

GOOD POINT: Well done, New York. Well done, Mr. Mayor. Another solid reason I'm proud to be a New Yorker.

(UN)CONVENTIONAL

Watching more of the convention last night. The governator was fun. His speech was a big, bombastic rallying cry. Nothing wrong with that now, is there? I thought the twins' speech was miscalculated. Twenty-two year old girls should have more to say to the world than bad, giggly jokes about grandma and TV shows. Also, Laura had the glassy-eyed slightly dated Stepford Wife look. A little creepy, if you ask me. I do like her, though -she just seems a little behind the times for an event that should be tuning in to the "hip" crowd a little better. Overall a good show, but not as compelling as Day 1.

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