Tombstone Hold 'Em

If you get bored from trick-or-treating tonight, or if you have no more use for your immortal soul, you can try your luck at Tombstone Hold'em.

Here are the rules

Let’s play the Amelie Game

It’s Friday. So in the ancient tradition that I just made up, it’s time to play the Amelie Game. If you’ve ever seen the movie Amelie, you know about the lists of likes and dislikes made by the main character (coincidentally enough named Amelie) throughout the film.

Here’s my list for this week:

Things I Like

1. The tangy scent of decomposing leaves
2. Musician’s Friend
3. Bluetooth

Things I Dislike

1. Pumpkin-eating squirrels
2. lunch meetings
3. flat tires

There you go, add your own lists of likes/dislikes (three each please) in the comments section.

PS – If you haven’t yet, subscribe to The Delta Park Project podcast, the inspiration of this post and for which it is a blatant rip off — er, homage.

Take this song, for free

No strings attached. No illegal downloads, no iPod accounts, no proprietary mp3 player specs, no cease and desist nastigrams from the RIAA.

Just a free song, offered to you by it's composer, Todd Lerner.

Enjoy


PS-Remember, you get what you pay for

Today's Top 10

The category is the Top 10 Worst Starting Lines for a Conversation.

So if a conversation starts with these lines, you know it's going to be bad news and you should just avoid the conversation altogether.

10. Do you want to hear a funny joke?
9. Don’t take this the wrong way, but…
8. Hello {insert your name here}, my name is Detective Smith…
7. Your test results are back, and we're going to need you to come in to the office.
6. Hello. Yeah it's been a while. Listen, the reason I'm calling is that my test results are back, and...
5. May I please have 5 minutes of your time?
4. You've had a rich, full life...
3. I'm gay and just slipped you a roofie, it should start taking effect right about...
2. Has this ever happened to you before?
1. I've got good news and horrible, awful, devastating news

Big props to my boy Mike U. for pitching in. Keep it real man.

Virtual Jack-O-Lantern

I received this link from Katrina earlier today, so I took a "stab" at creating my own virtual Jack-O-Lantern.

Whatcha think? Let me know how yours turns out.

L.A. face with the Oakland booty

This has been out in blogworld for a week now, so if you've already heard it , you're just a little less out of touch than me.

But it's still freakin' hilarious.

Here's a note from the artist:

"I've wanted to cover this song for a long time, because it is excellent - there's a wonderful message in there for those of you who have big butts."

And here's the link. You're going to love it. Baby Got Baaaaaack

Whatever is Noble

I can't believe the serendipity of Pomegranate Pretty's 10/18 post and me reading it at this particular time.

You see, my super model wife and I went to church for the first time in months last week, and one of the passages that was read really struck a chord with me. I share it with you only because it seems particularly apropos.

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
-- Philippians 4, verse 8

I'm not a bible-beater, and I'm not 100% certain who the Philippians were (I think they were followers of the advice of Dr. Phil, or something), but this seems like good advice no matter what religion you follow (if any).

Kind of an "accentuate the positive" message.

So, Pomegranate Pretty, keep you chin up and Illegitimis non carborundum.

Them There Eyes

KC is a great town for live jazz music.

I mean, I’m sure other towns are great too. I know for a fact that Chicago has some slammin’ joints. But I’m not trying to get into some kind of parochial pissing match about whose city has the best live jazz music scene. I’m just sayin’ KC is a great town for live jazz music.

Last Friday night my Supermodel Wife and I celebrated our wedding anniversary with dinner and a show at Jardine’s.

We had terrific table in the intimate club and enjoyed drinks and dinner while Angela Hagenbach channeled Sara Vaughn on stage. She knocked us out with her rendition of "Them There Eyes," and it didn’t hurt that she’s just a beautiful woman as well (though not as beautiful as my Super Model Wife).

The show really helped make the evening memorable. It also got me thinking that we need to start going out more often. We’ll definitely go back to Jardine’s (Hagenbach has shows there on 10/21 and 10/28 as well). We’ll also check out The Phoenix and The Blue Room.

Anyone wanna go along?

Blogspam

Those who know me know that I'm a pretty even-tempered guy. I don't get upset to the extreme. I tend not to take things personally, and I usually assume the best in people.

So it's rare to see raging anger from me about anything.

But...

Blogspam really pisses me off. I mean what the hell are these spammers thinking? Do they actually think the thinly veiled ads in the comments of blogs are fooling anyone?

Here’s a typical example:

"Hey, I saw your blog and I really like it. I'm thinking of starting a blog too. I think my blog will be about natural male enhancement. Sounds strange I know, but you would be surprised how much info there is about natural male enhancement. Anyway great job on your blog and please visit mine here."

What? You really like my blog? Okay then, I'll click on your link. NOT!

It's not that I have anything against advertising. I think it serves a valuable purpose in our economy. Hell, there would be no internet as we know it without advertising and marketing. But the blogspam format is just intellectually insulting.

I've made a practice of immediately deleting these offending posts, but I've decided to leave any blogspam comments to this post live for the purposes of illustration. Of course, I'll expect a cut of any revenue generated by these ads.

PS-I know you can turn on the verification to protect against spam, but it just seems like I shouldn't have to. I know, that's immature of me.

iMplants?

You probably heard about Apples big announcement this week of the video iPod.

As expected, the new device is sleek, sexy and bound to be a best seller. But it leaves you asking the question, what next from Apple?

Well, BT Laboratories has the answer: Musical Boobs.

That's right. It turns out the silicon in breast implants might just be the perfect medium for flexible electronic chips capable of storing your iTunes library. One boob would hold the mp3 files while the would have the playback software.

BT Laboratories' analyst Ian Pearson said flexible plastic electronics would sit inside the breast. A signal would be relayed to headphones, while the device would be controlled by Bluetooth using a panel on the wrist.

Technology blog Techdirt has coined the term “Breast iMplants”, although according to Pearson, the technology is still 15 years away.

But I already have some ideas for the "user interface" that I’d like to try out. Any volunteers?

PS-Thanks to Meleah for the tip.

Do you see any flippin' Sasquatches around here!?!

You thought the whole Napoleon Dynamite thing was over? Think again.

The Utah State Fair hired Napoleon and his student body president sidekick Pedro to be the pitch duo for this year's festivities.

In a series of TV and radio ads, Napoleon and his perm give insightful tidbits about the history of Utah blood feuds, the development of Sasquatch-killing horses and Utah carnival ride technology.

Granted, the fair has been over for a couple of weeks, but I'm hoping these two guys will show up in future ads -- maybe there's a new telecom or internet company looking for a new spokesduo.

The ads (click the "Napoleon's Sweet Ads" link) are in Real Media format, so I had to download the free Real Media player to see them. But it was worth it.

I mean, they were sweet!

PS - Check out this quote page.

Hint: Not New Orleans

Nothing much to say right now but a picture is worth a thousand words, so here's one from our trip to Italy a couple of years ago. 10 points if you can name the city.

Subway terrorist threat

Not to make lite of current public events, but this is a great take on the terror threats to the New York subway.

I mean, you can't make this stuff up (well, okay, the people at Six Meat Buffet can make it up, and it's pretty damn funny).

"Her eyes sparkled to me. One day they were blue; the next day they were green."

Unless you're completely made of stone, I don’t see how you can listen to these stories and not get a tear in you eye or at least find yourself getting a little choked up.

This is part of the StoryCorp Project. It’s a project that has been featured regularly on NPR (I think NPR is a partner or sponsor or something). But it’s a terrific idea and I’m really into it. It’s amazing that with all of the creative talent in Hollywood, they still can’t produce anything as compelling as a couple of people right off the street.

One of my favorite stories is by Richard Pecorella. Damn good stuff.

Let that be a lesson to you...

Talk about your gluttons for punishment:

Python Bursts After Trying to Eat Gator

A 13-foot Burmese python recently burst after it apparently tried to swallow a live, six-foot alligator whole, authorities said.

This has Sci-Fi channel movie of the week written all over it.

The incident has heightened biologists' fears that the nonnative snakes could threaten a host of other animal species in the Everglades.

Other animal species? You mean like... PEOPLE?!?!?

It's pretty clear that the only thing that can save us now is... Giant Robot Lizards.

Unwatchable

Here’s the theory I came up with while taking a shower this morning.

TV sucks.

Okay, I know I’m not the first person to think of this theory. And granted there are a few exceptions. But here’s the supporting logic. There just isn’t very much original thought in the mass entertainment world these days.

Sure, you’ve got some nice stuff coming out of HBO. Some of it is even watchable (I really like ROME).

But on basically network TV, there are really only about five shows on. Everything else is derivative of these five shows

1) Generic Family Sitcom: This show consists of a father who is often at odds with his parents, in-laws, wife or kids. Hijinks ensue. Other variations of this show involve groups of friends, roommates and gay people. But the comic situations are typically the same.

2) Generic Law/Cop Melodrama: My friend Chris likes to watch CSI. I was at his house when the show was starting the other night, and I accurately predicted what would happen: “There’s going to be a crime of some sort, some people will show up at the scene and investigate what happened.”

3) Generic Medical Melodrama: Same as Generic Law/Cop Melodrama, but in a hospital/medical setting. Why does Hollywood find lawyers, cops and doctors so interesting?

4) Generic Reality TV show: Interestingly, these shows have nothing to do with reality. They’re popular on the networks because the producers don’t have to pay actors or writers.

5) Generic Dramatic TV News Magazine: The network talking heads seem to have to make mountains out of molehills on a weekly basis.

The sad thing is that I know there are still creative people in the entertainment industry. But if an original concept does happen to make it to the pilot stage, even if, despite all odds, get on the air, it will quickly be cancelled because it doesn’t cater to the lowest common denominator of the American viewing public.

Oh well. At least we still have sports.