If I believed in a god, I would appeal thusly: “Please, please, PLEASE, God, don’t take Jerry Lewis yet! He’s one of the only remaining living legends of entertainment - don’t take him - not yet!” We’ve lost almost every link to the “Golden Age” of Hollywood, and Lewis dates back to the 1940s, when his amazing partnership with Dean Martin turned the team into H-wood royalty. Best wishes to Jerry for a quick & full recovery!

TO: The Big Shots at Fox News Channel, MSNBC, and CNN
FROM: David
SUBJ: Programming

1. I am a news junkie. I love watching news. I always have, going back to the mid-80s when CNN was the only option, and then growing to love CNN Headline News (which sucks now, but that’s another story). I enjoy knowing what’s going on in the world.
2. Devoting whole hours and programs to Natalie Holloway, the Duke Rape case, the teacher of the week who had sex with her student, and other such topics…frankly, it makes me sick.
3. When those “news” stories are on your stations, I turn the channel. Quickly.
4. I never watch the Dan Abrams show, the Greta Van Susteren show, or Larry King. I never will. What a complete waste of airtime and what could have been interesting news hosts. In fact, I initially had high hopes for Greta’s “On The Record” program, but it quickly sunk into lurid crime depravity. Cripes, coverage of this garbage even seeps into “Hannity & Colmes” and “Scarborough Country.” MSNBC has completely thrown in the towell on Friday nights, airing nothing but “true crime” crap.
5. I suspect that I’m not the only news junkie that feels this way.

Sincerely,
David

Here’s some buttons that I made and posted a while back…some good bloggage going on with these folks, so go visit ‘em, and please swipe any of the buttons if you’re so inclined.

All buttons created using Kalsey’s nifty button-making tool…and if you’d like me to make a button for you, just holla.

The mayor of our wonderful city, Dona Stebbins, is profiled in our newspaper today; she took office in January, and the Tribune is sorta assessing how she has done so far, and how her fellow civic leaders have taken to her. She’s a pretty hip mayor - she cruises through the blogs of the dozen or so Great Falls bloggers, and she has no problem leaving comments and stating her opinions. Whether Dona is a R or D (or any other label/party) doesn’t matter in this sense; what’s cool is that she really stays in touch with the community, and avails herself of all available forums to communicate. Good on her!

How many of you are familiar with Ceiling Cat?

Listening to Mike Savage on the drive home, and he started to play an audio clip of Representative Lynn Woolsey making a comment on the death of Al Zarqawi…all he played was a bit of Woolsey saying something about how we attacked “from the air,” and then Savage got so upset that he cut the tape and began ranting. I want to know what she said — does anyone know where I can find a reference to her comments?

Help the Canada Goose find his pond!
I wish that I could come up with things like this.
(more…)

After a too-long hiatus, Babs has finally emerged from her cocoon! She took some weeks off of blogging in order to finish up her book (!), and she’s ready & rarin’ to go - but first she needs to be told what she has missed out on during her absence. So go tell her all of the silly, stupid, wonderful, crazy, and whimsical things that have happened lately!

You all know that I hate sports. If I never see an ESPN commercial, or hear “Take Me Out To The Ball Game,” or understand what a “safety” is, etc, well, then I’ll be happy. But as some of you recall, there is one sporting event each year that I look forward to with gleeful anticipation, and that event occurred several days ago: the San Antonio Spurs lost and were eliminated from further playoff competition! But actually, there’s slightly more to the story this year… you see, I am actually quietly cheering for the Dallas Mavericks. Not because of any of the particular players, or their defense (or offense, for that matter), or the color of their uniforms, or their location. No, I’m cheering for the Mavs because of their leader. The Mavericks are owned & operated by a former dot-com guy who has pretty much thrown out the standard rule book when it comes to owning a major league sports team. He also puts his money where his mouth is, ponying up serious cash to finance technology ventures. And the fact that he is, to some degree at least, an Objectivist. And the fact that Mark Cuban is a blogger (with comments, like all true bloggers)…well, just icing on the cake. Go Mavs!

Complete, utter, and total idiots: those who believe that the number “666″ has any sort of significance in any context or capacity. And besides, today isn’t “6-6-6″ — at best, it’s 6-6-06, and that’s only if you assume that the calendar has been kept perfectly for centuries. At least it’s good to know that even “rapture-ready” believers can poke just a little fun at this number.

(ps - nifty graphic trick courtesy of Mandarin Design!)

All the talk recently about the National Spelling Bee got me reminiscing about my 15-seconds of fame, way back in 1980, in 8th grade. I won the school spelling bee, and then a small regional bee, and then was on to the Kern County spelling bee in Bakersfield (CA). This was big stuff - it was even recorded to air on one of the local channels! Well, long story short, I didn’t win. In fact, I bombed out very early in the contest, thanks to my mouth forging ahead way faster than my brain. As soon as I uttered the incorrect consonant in the word, I knew that I had screwed up. I turned to the judges, said “Oh wow…bummer…” and proceeded off-stage. So, my question to you, astute readers, is: what word did I spell incorrectly? Here’s some clues: the word has nine letters; it is a compound word; it begins with the letter H and ends with the letter N. Any guesses? Winner gets a nifty prize!

ps - family members not allowed to participate in this contest!

Good golly Miss Molly! My older brother Mark has finally taken the plunge and created his very own blog! He’s a pretty smart guy, lives in a very interesting place (S Florida, with hurricanes, gators, political scandals, etc), and is something of a wordsmith, so I’d wager that his blog will be pretty cool. Head on over to visit him, leave a comment, and tell him Dave sent you!

“To take someone under your wing” — sure, I’ve heard this expression before, and I suppose that I knew that it came from the bird world, but to actually see it on display was pretty cool. The babies were hiding from the bad man with the bread (me).

A clever young teen here in Great Falls managed to turn the tables on a purse-snatcher using her wits and technology. Good job!