R Blog

Kramer Is Nuts

National Lampoon brings us a missing Seinfeld episode to remind us, afterall, that  Kramer is nuts.

What Brian Says

Unplug the Christmas Machine

Al Gore Does Standup

We heard rumors that Al Gore wasn’t a wooden, slow talking, policy wonk. There were reports he was funny, engaging and down to earth. Somehow, in 2000 he wasn’t able to get that across. The result...well, you know the result. I’ve blogged about TED Talks before here here in "How to Save $4400."
It’s an annual conference of bright people who share their ideas. In the last month and a half I’ve watched lots of these talks on streaming video. They are all good.  Al Gore's talk a selection from the slide show on global warming that became The Inconvenient Truth demonstrates the side of Gore we never got to see during his eight years in the White House or during the crucial 2000 campaign. He’s funny and talks fast. There are lots of great talks to recommend:
 Tony Robbins who started all this motivational stuff shows why he’s the biggest dog in that doghouse.
Julia Sweeney performs an excerpt from her one woman show “Letting Go of God.”
Jeff Han, a research scientist at NYU, dazzles the crowd with a demonstation of what computer interface will look like in the near future.
Richard Baraniuk, a Rice University Professor, explains his vision for an on line global education system.
Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, details the people’s encyclopedia.
You can sample  Richard Dawkins,  from Oxford , who discourses on Darwinism and religion.
Steven Levitt ,an economist from the University of Chicago, describes the economics of a drug gang.
Just a sample of the great talks availabe on TED. (A very short BMW commercial proceeds each talk).

 

Sexiest Man Alive

People Magazine and Salon.com have recently published their Sexiest Man Alive feature with the usual suspects like George Clooney topping the lists. At our house we often have a Sexiest Man Alive vote and I never win. That honor is reserved for  Norm Abram of PBS’s This Old House. We are, of course, regular watchers with This Old House queued up with a TiVO season pass and we settle in every Saturday night to watch Kevin, Tommy, Rich, Roger and, of course, the apparently attractive Norm Abram. I view the show to gain home improvement knowledge but Linda hangs on Norm’s every move and word. As she watches I hear her making what can only be described as those strange sounds a cat makes when she’s stalking a bird, her head jerking slightly as Norm grabs his hammer and pounds nails. On this week’s show Norm offered to build a table out of plywood for the obviously single homeowner who owns a falling down three story nightmare in East Boston. “You mean mean you’ll build me a Norm Abram original?” she asks, coyly tilting her head. “Oh boy,” says my partner. “That old gal really wants to jump Norm.” This gives you the flavor of what it’s like watching This Old House at our place. Soft porn with sawdust. Now I really enjoy This Old House and have for years. But this overt lusting after a slightly overweight, shaggy faced master carpenter is a bit disconcerting. Norm’s bio alleges that “everyone wishes Norm lived next door.” I’ve thought about that and there might be certain advantages. It’s an attractive idea. He might help with some stuff. But, it surely would cause more problems than it solves. Sometimes I wonder about the attraction. Wonder what makes Norm the “sexiest man alive.” Obviously, he could wind your clock. And, he has all his fingers. It could be his air of complete confidence. That “can do” attitude. Perhaps it’s the plaid shirt. No. It must be the tool belt. I should try wearing mine more often. I hope Linda doesn’t find out that This Old House has a  web cam She’ll be watching old Norm all day.

Water Carrying Mea Culpas

First Rush (I Feel Liberated) Limbaugh confesses to  carrying water
for the Republicans for many years even though the Republicans had let him down. Now we get the same  water carrying confession from the editorial director of CBS News.com Dick Meyer. He tells us twelve years too late: "Really, it's just a simple thesis: The men who ran the Republican Party in the House of Representatives for the past 12 years were a group of weirdos...This is a story I should have written 12 years ago when the "Contract with America" Republicans captured the House in 1994. I apologize." This is why the unconventional media (blogs, etc) is becoming so important. It’s hard to know who to believe and when to believe them. I mean if you can’t trust Rush to tell it like it really is...
More major news media confessions on the way?

Simple Golf

(This will be of no interest to non golfers). I’ve been playing golf regularly for forty years and shooting essentially the same scores—low eighties on courses am familiar with. Like most everyone else I have used technology to try and improve my game. I have an expensive 460 cc Ping G-2 driver with a high launch shaft to increase length of drives and help me get the ball into the air. As a result, I hit drives sometimes 50-60 yards farther than I did in my twenties. I own a matching G-2 three metal club that will carry the ball 220 yards. In addition, there’s a set of Titleist DCI irons including three wedges to help with that short game. The most recent addition is a a Ping Craz E putter ($145) that is a joy to putt with. Finally, I’ve been using Calloway HX tour balls which seem pretty hot to me. With all this new equipment the game is more fun but the scores are the same. The last five weeks, playing the same course: 84,81,81,79,83. Those  scores in the seventies are very rare. It’s fun to hit the long ball occasionally and to have an outside chance at hitting par 5’s in two. Then, there are the three wedges to choose from on shots closer to the green. Club selection is considered to be an important part of golf and I’ve got lots of choices to make. Everyone with a full bag of clubs does. For example, from the fringe, should I chip, putt, belly a sand wedge, or even use a three wood? Golfers spend lots of money on equipment, fiddling with it, changing clubs. In one three year period I went through nine drivers. So, it was interesting yesterday when my golf buddy Special Ed and I decided it was time for our annual five iron contest. Normally, we play nine holes at the local course with a five iron, pitching wedge and a putter. But it looked like rain so I suggested we just take a five and an umbrella, a few balls and just go. We’d even putt with the five iron. I took a few practice putts and decided to putt with the five left-handed...that is, with the back of the club, using a right hand low grip. I can hit a five iron 150-170 yards on a cool, rainy day where there’s no roll or bounce. To make a long story short, I was stroking the five very cleanly, make good contact with every shot (no scuffs, tops, or misses, just slide fades or pulls, some straight) and was able to advance the ball and keep it in play on every hole. Plus, I was always able to find it! I very often use a five or six for bump and run shots, and was able to chip into makable putting range (for a putter). What surprised me was how well I putted with the five iron left-handed. Three putted the first hole, a par 5, for bogey. One putted two and three for bogey, then double bogey. Two putted number four for par. Two putted number five for par after lipping out a birdie effort. One putted number six for bogey,  One putted number seven for par. Two putted number eight for bogey. And one putted number nine for par. Score 42. This is about as well as I normally can do with a full bag of clubs! Clearly, my expensive collection of clubs really don’t give me much of an edge. Golf must be much simpler than we think it is. Hitting the five iron you can relax, knowing it’s not going to go very far anyway. Most slightly-better-than-mediocre golfers like myself don’t hit very many greens. We are chipping and trying to one putt for par anyway. The five iron game was fun. Would love to see some PGA players play a tournament with one club.

Make Money from Cancer

Center for Media and Democracy reports the following: "This October is the 26th annual Breast Cancer Awareness month, an event "conceived by the pharmaceutical company Zeneca, now AstraZeneca ... to promote mammography as the most effective weapon in fighting breast cancer." The increasing number of pink ribbon / breast cancer cause-related marketing campaigns has the advocacy group Breast Cancer Action referring to October as "breast cancer industry month." Companies -- like Ty, which is offering "SpongeBob PinkPants" this October -- point out that they raise money for breast cancer research. "In 2005 alone, cause-related marketing generated more than $30 million for research and community programs for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation," reports Josephine Marcotty. Pink marketing also helps companies' bottom lines. Advertising Age reports that "by turning its iconic red-and-white soup cans pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Campbell Soup Co. has doubled sales of its top varieties to its biggest grocery customer. ... [Campbell spokesman John] Faulkner said he would 'love to see the program expanded greatly next year.'"

Borat (We Have Sexy Time) RingTones

Okay. I prefer a ring tone that sounds like a telephone. Ring, ring, ring. But some people prefer music, sound effects or funny messages. Ring tones have even made it into fiction. Jack Reacher, my favorite detective, was sitting in the conference room of Secret Service headquarters in a meeting with a top FBI agent. “He (FBI agent) had the ringer set to a squeaky little rendition of some famous classical overture. It sounded ludicrous in the somber stillness of the room. He picked it up and clicked it on. The fatuous tune died.” (Without Fail by Lee Child, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2002) The fact is some like fatuous ring tones. If you do, then let me recommend KATAZO which has some amusing borat-like rings. Only $2.99   Just remember what happened to Borat recently on the streets of New York. By the way, Jack Reacher doesn’t have a cell phone. Now, that’s cool.

Borat’s Karma

I saw Borat the other night and will confess I laughed so hard I got a headache and a sore throat. I have also been a fan of Da Ali G Show on HBO. The humor of Sascha Baron Cohen is based on discomfort. He puts people into uncomfortable situations (chickens on the subway, photos of his “son’s” penis, shit at a dinner party) and it’s funny because of the incongruity. There’s a lot of meanness and cruelty in certain humor and Cohen has it down pat. It is amusing when he gets someone like Bob Barr or, on the TV show, James Baker or James Lipton, in an uncomfortable position. It’s edgy and dangerous as Cohen learned the other night when a New Yorker punched him out after Cohen/Borat suggested he would like to have sex with the guy’s coat. Cohen relies on the basic friendliness and decency of people, and his own personal charm, to escape harm. Didn’t work last Saturday. Now the film is facing lawsuits from the frat boys and the Romanian villagers. Reading the news reports it was hard for me to be sympathetic with the frat boys. I could gin up a bit of empathy for the poor Romanian village. But read this about the hotel desk guy (Vanilla Face in the film) and you might begin to question the disingenuousness, even deceitfulness, of Borat’s methods. Cohen’s humor is very funny to watch. Probably not so much fun to be on the receiving end. I’m now a bit embarrassed. My guess is with all the publicity from Borat, Bruno will have a tougher time getting his film made.

The Hero of 911

Rudy Giuliani has announced for President, at least an exploratory run. He was a crime fighting prosecutor in NY, then a crime fighting mayor. Looked really good after 911 although he carries some baggage like the way he treated his wife and his association with Bernard Kerik. He probably won’t look very good to the conservative wing of the Republican Party particularly after they all see this curious video.