V For Vendetta

This was a great comic book, and I'm definitely looking forward to the movie. Here's a semi-review of the movie. Sounds great! And political too! Wahoo!

Why Why Why???

My clothes dryer ain't working! That means by the time my clothes "air" dry they'll be all modly and shiz!

And Rachel Weisz was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress in "The Constant Gardner"?? WHY WHY WHY!?!!!!!!!?????? Argh, I don't think I've actually been happy when a character died on screen before until I got so fed up with her "holier-than-thou because I'm rich, British and I know better," character. Ugh. everyone was crying, I was cheering. the Lady-bug can grouch, I mean, vouch for that.

Choose Your Own Adventure...

Or rather, choose your own film. Check this website out, and see if you can figure out "the mystery". Pretty neat, eh?

Also, enjoy some live concerts for free from NPR.

Really Big Shoe

Come see Bragging to Children play Tuesday night. We got another good 8:30 show tomorrow night at An Tua Nua (835 Beacon St, $7). We're accompanied by the super-crazy "Self-Proclaimed Rock Stars" and funny "The Good Students".

See you there?

Have you read this woman?

Octavia Butler passed away this weekend. Has anyone read any of her work?

Matrix

So, why don't people like the other two Matrix movies?

What didn't those movies do that the first one did?

More ways to say...2

"Cats Meow?"

"The Peachest things Since Fuzz"

"The Greatest Things Since Sliced Bread."

"The Best thing Since Romeo Met Juliet"

You get the idea...suggestions?

Dim Sum with Friends

The cool thing about going to a chinese restaurant with a shell-fish food allergy is that there's not too much you can eat. Even the "beef" dishes sometimes have shrimp in it. For instance, there is one dish that never causes me problems, and then we find out it is mostly pork, but with one piece of shrimp in it. It's "lo bo gao" my favorite, but now I can't eat it "just in case" I have a reaction. As anyone will tell you there aren't too many good dim sum dishes that don't have shrimp in it, aside from Cha Tsu Bau. I had my epi-pen, and I was so tempted to just go ahead and take a bite.

This allergy's so weird. Like, when I got tested, I came back negative, but then I had a reaction on V-day. So, it makes me think there's something else at play. Some ingredient or something that's in some dishes but not in others.

Anyways, Fornication Under Consent of the King, to:
- Legal Seafood for their prices and for their snobby waitress who served me peanuts
- Lemongrass in Lexington for giving me peanut sauce, when I told them I had a peanut allergy (because the dish had to have peanuts in it).
- Dim Sum for not having many good non-seafood dishes except for Cha Tsu Bao ( Ta Sue Bow)...which is the Cat's Meow.

Nevertheless it was a blast for the LadyBug and I to visit some old roommates who are really, truly awesome people to hang with...

More ways to say....

Father U.C.K
For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge
iF yoU see (C) Kay

Anymore?

Is it weird...

Is it weird when one guy admits to another guy that he wants to know what a girl would look like after her pregnancy to see how big her breasts will be?

Is it weird when the guy is me who admits to another guy that he wants to know what a girl would look like after pregnancy to see how big her breasts will be?

Is it weird when the other guy is me who is listening to me admitting that I want to know what a girl would look like after pregnancy to see how big her breasts will be?

Is it weird when one guy (me) admits to another guy (me) that he wants to know what his breasts will look like after pregnancy?

Great Show Tonight

Great Show tonight. Some timing issues, but everything went well. I was happy to try some new things and stretch out a bit. I dont' know where I'm going to be a year from now. Will I be here? Will I have moved? Can I even make it here in Boston? Who knows, but for 20 minutes I forgot where I was and put on a show.

You Go Girl!

Bear crashes hockey game, mom saves kids
By Paul Waldie
Toronto Globe and Mail — Feb. 21, 2006

IVUJIVIK, Quebec — Lydia Angyiou's kids sure won't be giving her much trouble any more, now that they've seen her wrestle a 700-pound polar bear.

Angyiou lives in Ivujivik, a village of 300 people on the shore of Hudson Bay in northern Quebec.

One Wednesday evening earlier this month, Angyiou was walking near the village community center with her two sons when a group of children playing street hockey nearby started shouting and pointing frantically.

Angyiou, 41, turned around and saw a polar bear sizing up her 7-year-old son.

She told the children to run and raced around to get between the bear and her son. Then she started kicking and punching the animal, according to police reports.

In a flash, the bear swatted her in the face and she fell on her back. With the bear on top of her, Angyiou began kicking her legs in a bicycle-pedaling motion. She was swatted once more and rolled over, but the bear moved toward her again.

Siqualuk Ainalik heard the commotion and came rushing over. Seeing Angyiou wrestling with the bear, he ran to his brother's home, grabbed a rifle and headed back to the street. He fired a few warning shots.

The sound diverted the bear's attention from Angyiou just long enough for him to aim and fire again. According to police, Ainalik fired four shots into the bear before it finally died.

With the help of some neighbors, Angyiou made it to the home of Nelson Conn, a constable with the Kativik Regional Police Force.

"She came in in a panic," Conn recalled. "She was obviously in shock. She was saying, 'Bear, bear.' I just took her over to our nursing station and I asked where and if the bear was dead. She said, 'Yes.'"

Remarkably, Angyiou suffered only a couple of scratches and a black eye. She and the local police have been fielding calls from across Canada ever since the incident was first reported last week in the Nunatsiaq News.

Meanwhile, villagers are still marveling at her courage, and there is talk of nominating her for a bravery medal.

"I've been here 24 years and I've never seen this before," said Larry Hubert, a regional captain with the police force who arrived on the scene just after the bear was shot. "For sure, she saved the kids' lives."

Hubert has known Angyiou for 15 years and he can't believe she took on a bear. He said the bear measured eight feet in length and weighed at least 700 pounds.

Angyiou "is about 5-foot-nothing and 90 pounds on a wet day," Hubert said with a laugh. "She's pretty quiet. I'm surprised she went and did this.

"But I guess when your back is up against the wall, I guess we come up with super-human strength."

Ivujivik is Quebec's northernmost community, situated on a peninsula where the Hudson Bay meets the Hudson Strait.

While polar bears roam the giant ice packs that float just off shore, Hubert said it's rare for them to wander into the village. He said he believes the bear that tangled with Angyiou became disoriented and was not looking for food.

"She's lucky the bear wasn't hungry," he said. "If the bear was hungry, she would have been eaten pretty quickly."

Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.

Boston Metro

Woo! My Group Finally made it into the Metro!

Click here for the PDF file.

Awesome 2

Pencil in penis backfires

A Serbian man needed emergency surgery after sticking a pencil inside his penis to keep it stiff during sex.

Zeljko Tupic, from Belgrade, told doctors he had experienced erectile difficulties in the past.

So as he prepared for a night with his new lover, he decided to insert a thin pencil into his penis.

Tupic had to cut his sex session short when the pencil shifted and became lodged in his bladder, forcing him to call an ambulance, the daily Kurir reported.

Doctor Aleksandar Milosevic from Belgrade's Zvezdara hospital, who succesfully removed the pencil, said: "At first the patient did not tell us what really happened, but x-rays proved the truth.

"Tupic said he had no idea there were things like Viagra available but agreed that in future he will try pills before he takes any more chances with pencils."

Awesome 1

Shows, shows, shows...

[From my chain-email.]

Just want to let you know that my sketch comedy group, Bragging To Children, is still going on strong.

We're still performing every Tuesday night at An Tua Nua, 835 Beacon St. in Boston. Usually we start at 8:30pm, and usually we charge $7.

You should come out. Maybe you want to perform with us? Maybe you want something different to do on Tuesday night? Maybe you just hoping to catch a wardrobe malfunction? Maybe you want to hire us? Or maybe you want to go back to my third selection?

Either way, tomorrow'll be a good show. Aside from BTC, we have two great musical acts, Watermelon Robot and Media. And we're hosted by some guy named "Yoni."

Next week we have the Good Students and the Self Proclaimed Rock Stars joining us on stage. It should be a good show.

Also check us out in last week's "Weekly Dig" and an upcoming Boston Metro!

My Sister was published!

My sister had her (sappy) poem published in an online 'Zine. Wahoo!

Confrontation to Progress
By Aisha

How do I tell myself the truth?
That I decided to stay.

Then the rain and ocean,
Once providers,
Turned and crashed back
On my haven.

How do I tell myself,
All convincing and true
That the water rose to
Shortage all electricity,
To rot all stable walls,
To soak away words from paper,
Erase my life.

And as the water destroyed
Power to the city, so my phosphorescent flame
Has been put out.

How do I let myself feel
Anger
Towards a country that forsook my community
Through a metaphorical
Storm classism, racism?

The anger would drown me
Like the waters from the broken levies
That stormed my haven.

I will not drown
With anger or desperation
I will not be uprooted or
Swept away like the flowers
Of my garden past
This fecal water,
Will saturate life and bloom a rebirth.

That’s how I tell myself the truth.

A Nice Article: Don't Sweat The Small Stuff

A Nice Article from the Boston Sunday Globe.

BEVERLY BECKHAM
Don't sweat the small stuff when so much else matters
February 19, 2006

What I know now, what I've learned but what I have to remind myself every day, is that none of it matters. The snow. Sitting in traffic. Missing a flight. Forgetting to TiVo ''Lost." A bad cup of $2 coffee. A woman sitting in her car, WHAT IS SHE DOING JUST SITTING, while you're waiting with your blinker clicking for her to pull out of a space so you can pull in because the parking lot is that crowded and it's not even a Saturday.

We waste our energy and too much of our lives getting upset over what are only annoyances. ''Ask yourself, will this matter in a year?" my father used to say when I'd call in a tizzy from the car, because of something that seemed huge at the time but for the life of me I can't remember now. ''See?" I can almost hear him saying.

Before he got old and wise and philosophical, however, he got upset over dumb things, too. Someone cutting him off as he drove. A doctor keeping him waiting -- ''My time is valuable, too." A person at the Market Basket with more than 12 items in the express line. (This set him raving.) The techs at AOL who kept him on hold and then couldn't fix what didn't work. And my saying, ''I'll call you right back," and then forgetting. ''It's a good thing I wasn't holding my breath," he must have said 100 times.

Many years ago he hurt my feelings when he told me that a bed set I'd bought for his and my mother's wedding anniversary -- sheets and pillowcases and a comforter and bed skirt to match -- wasn't ''thoughtful." ''What kind of a gift are sheets?"

''They're not just sheets, Dad. They're a set. What do you mean sheets aren't thoughtful?"

I fumed. I called my friends. I said my father is impossible to please.

What I know now is that it was never about the sheets. It was about his life. He wanted a different one. A pretty bed set didn't change anything. My mother was confined to her bed. Dressing it up didn't help.

All the time he was sick and I sat by his side, things like this were crystal clear to me.

He threw away my wedding gown five years after I was married. He said, ''Of course I threw it away. Why would I keep it? You're never going to wear it again." I was so angry with him, over an out-of-date, now too small, probably-would-have-yellowed-in-the-closet-anyway wedding dress.

It was just a dress.

This was crystal clear, too.

So why, having seen the big picture clear and sharp and practically close-captioned, am I sighing and tapping my foot and fretting over things, which -- a week from now, never mind a year from now -- I won't remember? A snowstorm that was just an inconvenience. A canceled flight. An is-this-ever-going-to-be-finished home improvement project.

My father's favorite book the last few years of his life was ''Don't Sweat the Small Stuff." I gave it to him. He liked it better than he liked the sheets. He took it everywhere he went and read it while waiting in doctor's offices, while waiting in line at the Market Basket, and while waiting for me to call. He read it so often that the binding broke. He punched holes in the margins and transferred it into a loose-leaf binder. He also underlined his favorite parts: ''Surrender to the Fact that Life Isn't Fair." ''Remember, One Hundred Years from Now, All New People." ''Become More Patient. Don't Interrupt Others or Finish Their Sentences."

He was still working on the patient thing when he died -- waiting to feel better, wishing he could sit in traffic and pay $2 for a bad cup of coffee.

What I know now? What I've learned, but what I have to remind myself every day, is that life lessons aren't something you memorize like 2-times-2 or ''Four score and seven years ago" and that's it.

Life lessons -- stay calm, be patient, don't sweat the small stuff -- fade. You have to relearn them again and again.

Things happen that make you learn. You love. And you know that nothing else matters.

Beverly Beckham can be reached at bevbeckham@aol.com.



© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Show Tomorrow Night

Got another fantastic show tomorrow night.

Some previews: I order a "woman of the night", I point guns at random cast mates, and I get to act all kinds of silly.

We also have two great musical acts, Watermelon Robot and Media. And we're hosted by some guy named "Yoni."

Come check us out:

An Tua Nua
835 Beacon St
$7

Did you hear about this? Sad...

Payola probe turns from labels to radio
Feb 9, 2006, 1:59 GMT

NEW YORK, NY, United States (UPI) -- New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has shifted the focus of his ongoing payola probe from the music recording industry to the radio industry.

Spitzer said he has proof some of the country`s largest radio groups have illegally taken money and other forms of compensation to play certain songs on the radio, ABC News reported.

'The behavior has been unethical, improper, illegal and a sanction of some severity clearly should be imposed,' Spitzer told ABC News chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross.

Spitzer has subpoenaed Clear Channel, Infinity Broadcasting (now CBS Radio), Entercom, Emmis, Citadel, Cumulus, Cox, Pamal and ABC Radio. Unlike previous payola scams involving deejays or program directors, this scandal involves top corporate executives, Spitzer said.

Documents obtained by the attorney general revealed payola links to songs by Jennifer Lopez, John Mayer, Jessica Simpson, Celine Dion, Maroon 5, Good Charlotte, Franz Ferdinand, Switchfoot, Michelle Branch and R.E.M., ABC reported.

Sony Music and the Warner Music Group paid out millions of dollars to settle their cases and agreed to stop pay-for-play practices -- and to assist Spitzer in the investigation.

Copyright 2006 by United Press Internationa

Less Payola, More Ella

By Eugene Robinson

Friday, July 29, 2005; Page A23

What a bummer summer. Iraq is either a bloody mess or a tragic quagmire, depending on your level of optimism. Suicide bombers are busy memorizing subway maps. The blast-furnace heat that baked the country has eased, for now, but here comes hurricane season. If you want to escape to the beach, a tank of gasoline costs a small fortune.

But if you believe, as I do, that the truth will set us free, then amid the gloom there's a ray of light: Thanks to New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, now we know one reason why most of the music that gets played on the radio is such unchallenging pap.


I don't begrudge Spitzer his naked headline-chasing, because he delivers the goods. This politically ambitious scourge of Wall Street has turned to the music industry, obtaining a $10 million settlement from giant Sony BMG and a promise to stop bribing radio stations and their employees to play certain songs.

How did "I'm Real" by the thin-voiced Jennifer Lopez and "Hold On" by angst-ridden rockers Good Charlotte get played by a station in Buffalo? Sony's Epic Records division paid for the program director's personal trips to New York City and Fort Lauderdale. To get the station to play a song by throwback glam-rockers Franz Ferdinand, Sony had to give the guy an "extravagant" trip to Miami.

A program director in New York City got a plasma TV and an entertainment system "worth several thousand dollars" in exchange for playing hip-hop music from Sony Urban. A compliant program director in San Diego also got a flat-panel TV, but the transaction had to be buried in Epic's accounting system so it was disguised as a "contest giveaway"; the supposed winner of the fictitious contest was a friend of the program director's who had agreed to accept the TV for her.

A radio station programmer in Greenville, N.C., got travel expenses, a laptop computer and a PlayStation 2, similarly disguised as contest prizes "awarded" in a false name. Spitzer's accounting of Sony payola goes on and on. Sony paid stations to play songs by the whiny John Mayer, the petulant and scratchy Avril Lavigne, the derivative Maroon 5 -- and songs by Jessica Simpson, whose "music" defies my powers of description.

All of this is detailed in vivid internal e-mails that Spitzer obtained. When will companies learn that if you're about to do something questionable, it's a really bad idea to spell it out in an e-mail? Here is one overcaffeinated promotion employee, angry that stations were playing the bombastic Celine Dion single "I Drove All Night" in the wee hours when no one was listening:

"OK, HERE IT IS IN BLACK AND WHITE AND IT'S SERIOUS: IF A RADIO STATION GOT A FLYAWAY TO A CELINE [DION] SHOW IN LAS VEGAS . . . AND THEY'RE PLAYING THE SONG ALL IN OVERNIGHTS, THEY ARE NOT GETTING THE FLYAWAY."

You're right in assuming that the "flyaway" was a junket to Vegas. One such "contest" for station employees even offered the chance to "play blackjack with Celine."

There are other reasons why the music on broadcast radio is so uninteresting. One is the consolidation of station ownership by behemoths such as Clear Channel, Infinity and ABC, which leads to standardization of formats and playlists. You might hear a little more go-go in Washington and Baltimore, or a little more R. Kelly in Chicago, but basically we get the same music from coast to coast.

Another reason is the decline of music education in the nation's public schools. The next Stevie Wonder may be out there somewhere, brimming with undeveloped talent, but he might never get the chance to learn to play the piano. Instead, he might settle for laying down a few computer-assisted drum tracks and seeking fame as a rapper, calling himself MC Blind or something like that.

But if you want to realize just how low our standards have fallen, listen to the pop music of the 1940s or '50s. Listen to Ella Fitzgerald -- her incomparable voice, her musicianship, her subtlety and nuance, her perfect phrasing. Listen to the way she can flat-out swing. Yes, I know there was only one Ella. And I'm not suggesting that in 2005 we should be grooving to 50-year-old tunes. We need modern music for modern times. I'm just saying we should demand that the musicians we shower with fame and fortune be talented, and that they work to perfect their craft.

And I'm grateful to Eliot Spitzer for making the point that radio programmers shouldn't be bribed to assault our ears with monotonous, thumping mediocrity.

eugenerobinson@washpost.com

Time to Share: A Nother Spe Cial You Tube Post

I'm a big Jamiroquai fan.

There, I said it. I started to like them with this song, "Light Years", which was probably my first snow-boarding video. You got to admit it looks pretty cool. There used to be this cd store where you could go in and listen to cds before you bought them. I went to the record store and badgered the lady to get this CD, and when she did man was I glad. This was the first song that I heard. Amazing in it's synthesis of pop-funk-jazz and r&b all in the first verse-to-chorus. Wow. It blew my mind. And then reassembled the bits and put it back together again (eventually giving me back my sense of smell and taste).

You probably know Jamiroquai from this famous video (#24 of the top 25 of all time apparently). Or maybe this song--especially if you're a Napoleon Dynamite Fan. [SHARON!]

What I like about them is the energy of the band, from the lead singer Jay Kay, to their driving base and drum beats. It's good music to drive (and speed) to, and it's always something that pumps up your blood for a morning workout.

Speaking of morning workouts, I had a bad day at the office (yearly review --ug, I'm toast!), and went for a little shop-therapy afterwards (I desperately need new shoes to cover the hole in my socks. Get it? See, I'm saying you can see the holes in my socks because my shoes have holes..nevermind). And while I was at the ultra-working class Meadow Glenn Mall in "Medfid". I ran into this cute girl I've seen at the gym. At least I think it's her, and boy has she lost weight if it is! Anyways, I go up and say, "ah, what the hell, I'll just give a head-nod, and also smile at her 3-year-old-daughter-that-she-had-when-she-was-19." And what happens as soon as I think about hollering? Yep. Snot came out of my nose and hit my upper-lip. So much so that the slightly-darker than me, yet for some reason he's not black because he's Indian-guy who sells cell phones at one of those kiosks, grimaced and took a step back. No sweat. I wiped it on my t-shirt. BUT, quickly abandoned any thoughts of looking at another woman. Serves me right.

The thing is, I wasn't going to actually talk or say anything, but in the nano-second it took for that thought to fire between my synapses, my parasympathetic response (fight or flight) kicked in and my natural instinct, "must always embarrass myself in front of the opposite sex at all times, kicked in and snot flew out of my nose in some sort of pre-excitement, anticipatory counter-measure implemented by my girlfriend in such cases.

Such is life.

Well, enjoy!

Site correction

It was Kate who suggested I got to CVS. I did not think of that on my own.

End boring correction.

:P

How I ruined Valentine's Day

How I ruined Valentine's Day

So, we're at this Japanese restaurant, Mr. Sushi, and we order what think is a vegetable dish -- the scallion pancake. Well, wouldn't you know it, it has shrimp in it. But it didn't say it has seafood in it. And me, I forgot to ask if it had shrimp and peanuts.

So, we're moving along, and my throat starts to hurt. I write it off to the fact that the food was hot temperature wise. But my lady-bug points out that it has shrimp in it. Wouldn't you know it, as soon as she says, "Shrimp" but throat clamps down. Now, I'm wheezing a bit, but trying to do a good job of hiding it.

"Are you okay babe?"
"Me, yeah, my tie's on too tight."
"The shrimp isn't bothering you?"
"No. It's just hot. You know what, I think I'm going to eat something else."

…few minutes later…

"I think I better head to CVS."

I'm go out to my car, panicking that I forgot my epi-pen. Wouldn't you know it, I left it at the house, even though I saw the bag it was in and thought, "I may need this later." But for some reason, my hands said, "Let's leave it here and kill the bastard."

And a bastard I was. Standing in a line of 15 people (8 in mine, 7 in the other), I was desperate. I loosened my tie, unbuttoned my shirt, and was clawing at the benadryl package. I almost opened it (just tore a little off the side), but was afraid to get accused of stealing. So, this cashier, seeing that there's a line, calls over to this guy for help who's standing a few yards behind me and goofing off. First in person, then over the loud speaker.

"Ha," he laughs, "huge line."

NO KIDDING CHIEF! And I'm freakin' dyin' man! Get yo' ass in gear!

Benadryl in hand (recommended dose 1-2. My dose? 3). I head back to the restaurant, and get my non-shrimpy food wrapped up.

Then we head over to the show. The group knew that no one would come, but just in case we were hoping to show them DVD's. One problem, the DVD player wasn't working properly, after we were told it was installed and ready to go. The color was all effed-up, so we just turned everything into a monochrome black and white and hoped for the best. Who wanted a show? The owner, who was a bit bored, and we were a bit, um, taken aback by his request. So, we sat around, ate chocolate deserts (my throat was starting to feel better), while telling jokes to the owner.

The funny ("ist) part of the whole night is that once we got to the bar, I was only going to stay for like 4 minutes, so that I could go home and rest, but then this wave of emotion hit me that I was like bothering people and letting everyone down because I ate shrimp and because I did the DVD wasn't working. That's a run-on sentence, but that's a rough out-line of what I was thinking. Apparently, the entire night I was acting "drunk" and ranting about race-relations. I wasn't drunk, I just had like 3 benadryl's to stop my throat from choking on me (man, everybody part was against me that night)..

Anyways, so that's how I ruined V-day. Who needs love anyways! (But K's still with me).

Pictures

..I can't take credit for these pictures, ChupaPanda sent them to me in a forward, but I think one or two of them deserve to go up as my icon for myspace.

Damn it's been a long time!

Darkwing Duck, Fighting Street, Bomberman, R-Type...Damn I miss you Turbo-Graphix 16. And you too Sega, with your Reggie Jackson Baseball, and original Shinobi and Double Dragons games. So long Alex Kidd and Sonic the Hedgehog!

Sniff.

Maze Game

Okay, I've been told I need to put a disclaimer: This isn't for the faint of heart.

Here's a Maze Game.

And when you're done, check out this video of someone beating the game.

To All Y'all Netflix Losers

I mean, users...users (since I'm one. by the way, how do I put my "queue" on my blog? Anyone?)

'Throttling' angers Netflix renters

By Michael Liedtke, AP Business Writer | February 10, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO --Manuel Villanueva realizes he has been getting a pretty good deal since he signed up for Netflix Inc.'s online DVD rental service 2 1/2 years ago, but he still feels shortchanged. That's because the $17.99 monthly fee that he pays to rent up to three DVDs at a time would amount to an even bigger bargain if the company didn't penalize him for returning his movies so quickly.

Netflix typically sends about 13 movies per month to Villanueva's home in Warren, Mich. -- down from the 18 to 22 DVDs he once received before the company's automated system identified him as a heavy renter and began delaying his shipments to protect its profits.

The same Netflix formula also shoves Villanueva to the back of the line for the most-wanted DVDs, so the service can send those popular flicks to new subscribers and infrequent renters.

The little-known practice, called "throttling" by critics, means Netflix customers who pay the same price for the same service are often treated differently, depending on their rental patterns.

"I wouldn't have a problem with it if they didn't advertise `unlimited rentals,'" Villanueva said. "The fact is that they go out of their way to make sure you don't go over whatever secret limit they have set up for your account."

Los Gatos, Calif.-based Netflix didn't publicly acknowledge it differentiates among customers until revising its "terms of use" in January 2005 -- four months after a San Francisco subscriber filed a class-action lawsuit alleging that the company had deceptively promised one-day delivery of most DVDs.

"In determining priority for shipping and inventory allocation, we give priority to those members who receive the fewest DVDs through our service," Netflix's revised policy now reads. The statement specifically warns that heavy renters are more likely to encounter shipping delays and less likely to immediately be sent their top choices.

Few customers have complained about this "fairness algorithm," according to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings.

"We have unbelievably high customer satisfaction ratings," Hastings said during a recent interview. "Most of our customers feel like Netflix is an incredible value."

The service's rapid growth supports his thesis. Netflix added nearly 1.6 million customers last year, giving it 4.2 million subscribers through December. During the final three months of 2005, just 4 percent of its customers canceled the service, the lowest rate in the company's six-year history.

After collecting consumer opinions about the Web's 40 largest retailers last year, Ann Arbor, Mich., research firm ForeSeeResults rated Netflix as "the cream of the crop in customer satisfaction."

Once considered a passing fancy, Netflix has changed the way many households rent movies and spawned several copycats, including a mail service from Blockbuster Inc.

Netflix's most popular rental plan lets subscribers check out up to three DVDs at a time for $17.99 per month. After watching a movie, customers return the DVD in a postage-paid envelope. Netflix then sends out the next available DVD on the customer's online wish list.

Because everyone pays a flat fee, Netflix makes more money from customers who only watch four or five DVDs per month. Customers who quickly return their movies in order to get more erode the company's profit margin because each DVD sent out and returned costs 78 cents in postage alone.

Although Netflix consistently promoted its service as the DVD equivalent of an all-you-can eat smorgasbord, some heavy renters began to suspect they were being treated differently two or three years ago.

To prove the point, one customer even set up a Web site -- http://www.dvd-rent-test.dreamhost.com -- to show that the service listed different wait times for DVDs requested by subscribers living in the same household.

Netflix's throttling techniques have also prompted incensed customers to share their outrage in online forums such as http://www.hackingnetflix.com.

"Netflix isn't well within its rights to throttle users," complained a customer identified as "annoyed" in a posting on the site. "They say unlimited rentals. They are liars."

Hastings said the company has no specified limit on rentals, but "`unlimited' doesn't mean you should expect to get 10,000 a month."

In its terms of use, Netflix says most subscribers check out two to 11 DVDs per month.

Management has previously acknowledged to analysts that it risks losing money on a relatively small percentage of frequent renters. The risk has increased since Netflix reduced the price of its most popular subscription plan by $4 per month in 2004 and the U.S. Postal Service recently raised first-class mailing costs by 2 cents.

Netflix's approach has paid off so far. The company has been profitable in each of the past three years, a trend its management expects to continue in 2006 with projected earnings of at least $29 million on revenue of $960 million. Netflix's stock price has more than tripled since its 2002 initial public offering.

A September 2004 lawsuit cast a spotlight on the throttling issue. The complaint, filed by Frank Chavez on behalf of all Netflix subscribers before Jan. 15, 2005, said the company had developed a sophisticated formula to slow down DVD deliveries to frequent renters and ensure quicker shipments of the most popular movies to its infrequent -- and most profitable -- renters to keep them happy.

Netflix denied the allegations, but eventually revised its terms of use to acknowledge its different treatment of frequent renters.

Without acknowledging wrongdoing, the company agreed to provide a one-month rental upgrade and pay Chavez's attorneys $2.5 million, but the settlement sparked protests that prompted the two sides to reconsider. A hearing on a revised settlement proposal is scheduled for Feb. 22 in San Francisco Superior Court.

Netflix subscribers such as Nathaniel Irons didn't believe the company was purposely delaying some DVD shipments until he read the revised terms of use.

Irons, 28, of Seattle, has no plans to cancel his service because he figures he is still getting a good value from the eight movies he typically receives each month.

"My own personal experience has not been bad," he said, "but (the throttling) is certainly annoying when it happens."

One of those foward thingies

I hate snow. I also hate these forward thingies, because y'all know everything about me if you've read my two biographies already -- The Bible, and Batman Beyond: A Novelization. And plus these emails touch a certain nerve that always makes me cry.

Just give me a minute.

Okay, let's begin.

1. What is your full name? Phineas Q. Kruckamuck, aka: Rashed Townes, aka: Megaman X, aka: Ike Turner.

2. What color pants are you wearing? black sean john sweats that were marked down from $70 to $20. Since I refuse to take off my "rich pants", I know have a golf-ball sized hole in them. Or on them? Whatever, it's near my crotch.

3. What are you listening to right now? 1510am The Zone: Sporting News Radio.


4. What was the last thing you ate? last ate? man, kate's eating cholcolate chip panckaes right now, so i'm going to and eat a chocolate brownie. BEAT THAT!

5. Do you wish on stars? Only on Ike Turner. And Prince. Occassionaly Prince.

6. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Kate and I would both be Purple--her from embarassment for being caught, and me for beating punched repeatedly, and her for being embarassed for being caught by Channel 5's "Help Me Hank"

7. How is the weather right now? As if Boston wasn't white enough, there's a total "white out" outside my window. I think it's snow. It could be that Macy's having a sale, and the black folks haven't woken up yet. But it's snowy, windy and we have half-a-foot of snow.

8. Who was the last person you spoke to on the phone? Kate, last night I was a gentlemen (re: effeminate) and dropped Kate off at 1AM.

9. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Kate? My girlfriend? Meh, she's alright. I guess.

10. How old are you today? 25, ug.

11.Favorite drink? alcohol- gasoline with a twist of lemon non-alc: egg-nog?

12. Favorite sport? basketball, followed by baseball and football.

13. Hair color? black

14. What color is your car? Gold

15. Siblings? Do you really think that I would be so weak to allow anyone to else to survive? And by which I mean, yes, I have siblings.

16. Favorite month? August (because it's revered) and November (because I was born into it. Yes, I was "born into" it like royalty).

17. Favorite food? It's all foods I can't eat since my allergic reaction: peanuts, shrimp, dim sum. You think not having them would make me feel great, but no absense makes the heart grow founder. what's left? I like hamburgers and pizza.

18. What was the last movie you saw? I saw The Aristocrats last night on DVD and Crash. The last movie movie in the theatres was Debbie Does...eerrr, it was Syriana.

19. Favorite day of the year? Birthday. Occassionally Christmas, depending on how much Fox News tries to ruin it for me.

20. Who do I vent to when angry? Everyone.

21. What was your favorite toy as a child? Sega and Super Nintendo.

22. Summer or Winter? Summer

23. Hugs or kisses? How 'bout both...(lowers voice)down there!

24Chocolate or vanilla? Chocolate and vanilla- I like them both!


26. Who is most likely to respond? Sister and and the people who read my blog.

27. Who is least likely to respond? The guys. And the people who read my blog.


28. When was the last time you cried? Probably a couple of days ago when I realized that I wasn't going to be the last person alive on Earth in the year 2600.

29. What is under your bed? Grant's Tomb! Wait, wrong riddle.

30. Who is the friend you have had the longest? My right hand(s) and Matt.

31. What did you do last night? Watched Crash and the Aristocrats with Kate and then drove her an hour home. Then drove back. Looked at "art" films, wrote a blog, surfed the 'net, read comic books, and then put myself to bed at the still-considerable hour of 2:45.

32. What are you afraid of? Failing. So, what do I end up doing? Nothing! Kids, always remember: It's better not to try.

33. Plain, buttered or salted popcorN? death by piranha.

34. Favorite car? cars that look like the chevy avalanche (with a cab and some seats towards the back of it), almost anything by bmw.

35. Favorite flower? lavender?

36. Number of keys on your key ring? let's see here, dungeon, house, mistress, girlfriend's, wife, fort knox, white house lincoln room, bathroom at fenway park....3 I have 3 keys.

37. How many years at your current job? job? haha, I work? 3.

38. Favorite day of the week? Friday cause I can anticipate the weekend (truer words were never spoken kate)

39. What did you do on your last birthday? had a cool surprise party. a very cool surprise party.

40. How many states have you lived in? 2


41. How many cities have you lived in? 6- Roxbury (boston), Columbus, Praetos (on Jupiter), Lexington, Cambridge, Somerville,

"Transformers!...

"...More than meets the eye!"

So I guess a few of the boys went to see Transformers tonight. My lady-bug and I were scared of the snow. So I drove her back home instead of chilling at the midnight show. Man, that's just a movie from childhood I wish I saw in the movie theatre when young.

Actual conversation:

Me: You know Transformers is like the best movie ever.
Her: Uh.
Me: Yeah you'll like it too. They remade 'Transformers 'into one of your favorite movies.
Her: Really?
Me: I mean, I was watching 'English Patient,' and I was like, 'I've seen this movie before...Oh, 'Transformers!'"
Her: oh.
Me: Remember 'Schindler's List,' and, 'Passion of Christ' and 'Malcom X?' All remakes of Transformers. I was watching 'Star Wars III,' and was like...
Her: Let me guess...
Me: Yeah, I've seen it before! It was a remake of 'The Matrix,' which was a remake of 'Transformers.'
Her: Ugh. *giggle*

Why aren't y'all mad about this, part II?

Well, she did kill a man...but still!:

Iran to hang teenage girl attacked by rapists
Saturday, 7th January 2006
Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Jan. 07 – An Iranian court has sentenced a teenage rape victim to death by hanging after she weepingly confessed that she had unintentionally killed a man who had tried to rape both her and her niece.

The state-run daily Etemaad reported on Saturday that 18-year-old Nazanin confessed to stabbing one of three men who had attacked the pair along with their boyfriends while they were spending some time in a park west of the Iranian capital in March 2005.

Nazanin, who was 17 years old at the time of the incident, said that after the three men started to throw stones at them, the two girls’ boyfriends quickly escaped on their motorbikes leaving the pair helpless.

She described how the three men pushed her and her 16-year-old niece Somayeh onto the ground and tried to rape them, and said that she took out a knife from her pocket and stabbed one of the men in the hand.

As the girls tried to escape, the men once again attacked them, and at this point, Nazanin said, she stabbed one of the men in the chest. The teenage girl, however, broke down in tears in court as she explained that she had no intention of killing the man but was merely defending herself and her younger niece from rape, the report said.

The court, however, issued on Tuesday a sentence for Nazanin to be hanged to death.

Last week, a court in the city of Rasht, northern Iran, sentenced Delara Darabi to death by hanging charged with murder when she was 17 years old. Darabi has denied the charges.

In August 2004, Iran’s Islamic penal system sentenced a 16-year-old girl, Atefeh Rajabi, to death after a sham trial, in which she was accused of committing “acts incompatible with chastity”.

The teenage victim had no access to a lawyer at any stage and efforts by her family to retain one were to no avail. Atefeh personally defended herself and told the religious judge that he should punish those who force women into adultery, not the victims. She was eventually hanged in public in the northern town of Neka.

This article comes from Iran Focus
http://www.iranfocus.com

The URL for this story is:
http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5184

(Dang, that's rough!)

Why aren't y'all mad about this, part I?

They're gonna take away our internet y'all!:

This article can be found on the web at
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060213/chester
The End of the Internet?

by JEFF CHESTER

[posted online on February 1, 2006]

The nation's largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online.

Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency. According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets--corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers--would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out.

Under the plans they are considering, all of us--from content providers to individual users--would pay more to surf online, stream videos or even send e-mail. Industry planners are mulling new subscription plans that would further limit the online experience, establishing "platinum," "gold" and "silver" levels of Internet access that would set limits on the number of downloads, media streams or even e-mail messages that could be sent or received.

To make this pay-to-play vision a reality, phone and cable lobbyists are now engaged in a political campaign to further weaken the nation's communications policy laws. They want the federal government to permit them to operate Internet and other digital communications services as private networks, free of policy safeguards or governmental oversight. Indeed, both the Congress and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are considering proposals that will have far-reaching impact on the Internet's future. Ten years after passage of the ill-advised Telecommunications Act of 1996, telephone and cable companies are using the same political snake oil to convince compromised or clueless lawmakers to subvert the Internet into a turbo-charged digital retail machine.

The telephone industry has been somewhat more candid than the cable industry about its strategy for the Internet's future. Senior phone executives have publicly discussed plans to begin imposing a new scheme for the delivery of Internet content, especially from major Internet content companies. As Ed Whitacre, chairman and CEO of AT&T, told Business Week in November, "Why should they be allowed to use my pipes? The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment, and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!"

The phone industry has marshaled its political allies to help win the freedom to impose this new broadband business model. At a recent conference held by the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a think tank funded by Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and other media companies, there was much discussion of a plan for phone companies to impose fees on a sliding scale, charging content providers different levels of service. "Price discrimination," noted PFF's resident media expert Adam Thierer, "drives the market-based capitalist economy."

Net Neutrality

To ward off the prospect of virtual toll booths on the information highway, some new media companies and public-interest groups are calling for new federal policies requiring "network neutrality" on the Internet. Common Cause, Amazon, Google, Free Press, Media Access Project and Consumers Union, among others, have proposed that broadband providers would be prohibited from discriminating against all forms of digital content. For example, phone or cable companies would not be allowed to slow down competing or undesirable content.

Without proactive intervention, the values and issues that we care about--civil rights, economic justice, the environment and fair elections--will be further threatened by this push for corporate control. Imagine how the next presidential election would unfold if major political advertisers could make strategic payments to Comcast so that ads from Democratic and Republican candidates were more visible and user-friendly than ads of third-party candidates with less funds. Consider what would happen if an online advertisement promoting nuclear power prominently popped up on a cable broadband page, while a competing message from an environmental group was relegated to the margins. It is possible that all forms of civic and noncommercial online programming would be pushed to the end of a commercial digital queue.

But such "neutrality" safeguards are inadequate to address more fundamental changes the Bells and cable monopolies are seeking in their quest to monetize the Internet. If we permit the Internet to become a medium designed primarily to serve the interests of marketing and personal consumption, rather than global civic-related communications, we will face the political consequences for decades to come. Unless we push back, the "brandwashing" of America will permeate not only our information infrastructure but global society and culture as well.

Why are the Bells and cable companies aggressively advancing such plans? With the arrival of the long-awaited "convergence" of communications, our media system is undergoing a major transformation. Telephone and cable giants envision a potential lucrative "triple play," as they impose near-monopoly control over the residential broadband services that send video, voice and data communications flowing into our televisions, home computers, cell phones and iPods. All of these many billions of bits will be delivered over the telephone and cable lines.

Video programming is of foremost interest to both the phone and cable companies. The telephone industry, like its cable rival, is now in the TV and media business, offering customers television channels, on-demand videos and games. Online advertising is increasingly integrating multimedia (such as animation and full-motion video) in its pitches. Since video-driven material requires a great deal of Internet bandwidth as it travels online, phone and cable companies want to make sure their television "applications" receive preferential treatment on the networks they operate. And their overall influence over the stream of information coming into your home (or mobile device) gives them the leverage to determine how the broadband business evolves.

Mining Your Data

At the core of the new power held by phone and cable companies are tools delivering what is known as "deep packet inspection." With these tools, AT&T and others can readily know the packets of information you are receiving online--from e-mail, to websites, to sharing of music, video and software downloads.

These "deep packet inspection" technologies are partly designed to make sure that the Internet pipeline doesn't become so congested it chokes off the delivery of timely communications. Such products have already been sold to universities and large businesses that want to more economically manage their Internet services. They are also being used to limit some peer-to-peer downloading, especially for music.

But these tools are also being promoted as ways that companies, such as Comcast and Bell South, can simply grab greater control over the Internet. For example, in a series of recent white papers, Internet technology giant Cisco urges these companies to "meter individual subscriber usage by application," as individuals' online travels are "tracked" and "integrated with billing systems." Such tracking and billing is made possible because they will know "the identity and profile of the individual subscriber," "what the subscriber is doing" and "where the subscriber resides."

Will Google, Amazon and the other companies successfully fight the plans of the Bells and cable companies? Ultimately, they are likely to cut a deal because they, too, are interested in monetizing our online activities. After all, as Cisco notes, content companies and network providers will need to "cooperate with each other to leverage their value proposition." They will be drawn by the ability of cable and phone companies to track "content usage...by subscriber," and where their online services can be "protected from piracy, metered, and appropriately valued."

Our Digital Destiny

It was former FCC chairman Michael Powell, with the support of then-commissioner and current chair Kevin Martin, who permitted phone and cable giants to have greater control over broadband. Powell and his GOP majority eliminated longstanding regulatory safeguards requiring phone companies to operate as nondiscriminatory networks (technically known as "common carriers"). He refused to require that cable companies, when providing Internet access, also operate in a similar nondiscriminatory manner. As Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig has long noted, it is government regulation of the phone lines that helped make the Internet today's vibrant, diverse and democratic medium.

But now, the phone companies are lobbying Washington to kill off what's left of "common carrier" policy. They wish to operate their Internet services as fully "private" networks. Phone and cable companies claim that the government shouldn't play a role in broadband regulation: Instead of the free and open network that offers equal access to all, they want to reduce the Internet to a series of business decisions between consumers and providers.

Besides their business interests, telephone and cable companies also have a larger political agenda. Both industries oppose giving local communities the right to create their own local Internet wireless or wi-fi networks. They also want to eliminate the last vestige of local oversight from electronic media--the ability of city or county government, for example, to require telecommunications companies to serve the public interest with, for example, public-access TV channels. The Bells also want to further reduce the ability of the FCC to oversee communications policy. They hope that both the FCC and Congress--via a new Communications Act--will back these proposals.

The future of the online media in the United States will ultimately depend on whether the Bells and cable companies are allowed to determine the country's "digital destiny." So before there are any policy decisions, a national debate should begin about how the Internet should serve the public. We must insure that phone and cable companies operate their Internet services in the public interest--as stewards for a vital medium for free expression.

If Americans are to succeed in designing an equitable digital destiny for themselves, they must mount an intensive opposition similar to the successful challenges to the FCC's media ownership rules in 2003. Without such a public outcry to rein in the GOP's corporate-driven agenda, it is likely that even many of the Democrats who rallied against further consolidation will be "tamed" by the well-funded lobbying campaigns of the powerful phone and cable industry.

(Reprinted without permission...whoops!)

Don't Eff with me Buddy...

...Or you'll end up naked!

Grammy's Recap

And I don't mean as in "how's Gram-gram's doing?"

Man, I picked up my aunt from the airport last night. Great to see family again!

Anyways, I wasn't really down for watching the Grammy's, but I can't believe I missed the Gorillaz/Madonna performance. I really like that song, "Feels Good" and I don't care what you think, I thought Madonna looked pretty! I also think her song, "Caught Up" is a good song to work out to. I always seem to push out that extra rep or increase my cardio that extra bit when that songs on. It's got a great driving beat.

Did anyone see the troll sighting? Okay, that's a bit harsh, since I love Sly Stone. But man, something seemed off. Like they were doing this big celebrity "thank you" (Randy from American Idol? On stage?!?) but then, all of a sudden, this old-man comes out with a mohawk and doesn't lift his neck. and looked like he was having trouble with the piano and microphone. Sigh. I know there's all these rumors, well not rumors, I guess more like examples, where he was on drugs and didn't put on good performances.

Let's just say, I was happy to see him. His influence on music is vastly underrated as he was like the first guy to brazenly and openly combine rock with r&b and gospel. And if you haven't heard his stuff, I encourage you to try some Sly and the Family Stone out, stat (that's a medical term).

Jon, I know you don't like Kanye West, but man he had a good performance last night. And I think Jamie Foxx is pretty funny. I'm going to be there. on his level. Performing comed----doh! I'll never be famous! *sniff*

Apparently there was a Terrence Howard (Hustle & Flow, Crash), when he introduced Christina Aguilera and Herbie Hancock. I have to link to this, only because Herbie Hancock is (or was when I played) a piano influence of mine. ("Blank Hancock signed the Declaration of Indepence." "Herbie!")

Then there was a Jay-Z/Linkin Park thing with Paul McCartney. I don't want to link to it. Sorry.

This is a great performance from the Grammy's. (Damn that Beyonce's FIINNNE)
Peace.

Transitional Champ

You know what that is? That's when a wrestler holds a title for a small amount of time until a bigger-named wrestler comes to challenge. Or, they may hold the title for a short time and let the fan-favorite wrestler take over as champ. Usually, the transitional champ is derided as unfit to be king, but then historians marvel at how great they were and how much they did in such a short time (especially given that they and the audience knew they were only temporary champs). See Mick Foley, Rodney Piper, Sgt. Slaughter and many other "heel" (bad guy) champs.

Although I don't have any examples, I believe at the twilight of their careers, these transitional champs are given another short-run as champion as the fans--and the wrestling company--give them thanks for serving the greater good by allowing other wrestlers to trade off their fame.

My question, why can't this paradigm apply to presidents? Let's bring back Jimmy Carter, out of recognition for the hard job/circumstances that arose before and during his presidency. Not to mention all the necessary and honorable diplomatic work he's done throughout the world. He'll only serve a quick 4 years and then be gone people. Let's get on it!

Articles

Woot! Had a great show last night. Well, sorta great. It was good. Meh, it was okay.
Next week we're probably having a free show and maybe showing a movie or something because of v-day. And yes, I believe that I'm going to be there, even though I have a lady-friend.

Here's something interesting in Wednesday's NY Times. Low-Fat diets don't work! I'm not sure if I should be happy and run through the streets yelling "I'm free (to continue to eat what I want)," or if I should be sad that there's nothing to save you from heart disease and the toil of losing weight?

Also, this is an article about a "Deutsch-bag." Basically, this guy is 24 and President Bush's youngest appointee. He was made a public affairs officer for NASA and was the person who made NASA change every reference they made to the "Big-Bang" as a theory and nothing else. Although the NY Times article doesn't meantion it, I also believe he put, or wanted to put, intelligent design-based science in NASA's websites, press releases, etc. Although, I don't have the article with me to back that up, so this is just conjecture. But it's a case where politics and personal beliefs can have a costly effect on society. Just think of the billions of dollars NASA spends -- and some of the ancillary benefits we get in the form of consumer products -- now imagine how hard it would be to achieve and of the success NASA's reached under an "intelligent design model". It would make space-exploration nearly impossible. Maybe that's the point.

And here's an interesting article on moral relativism. Upfront, it concludes that people may have a particular moral leaning, but then use job descriptions or economic reasons to justify tossing their morality away. Interesting.

Hope all is well for you. Talk to you later!

Go Sox!

Man Killed In Crash Featured On Sox Billboard
Son Pictured Celebrating Home Run

POSTED: 11:49 am EST February 7, 2006
UPDATED: 2:03 pm EST February 7, 2006
Email This Story | Print This Story

QUINCY, Mass. -- After Dennis Thomson lost his 20-year-old son in a car crash, he prayed for a sign or message that his son was all right.

Perhaps that prayer has been answered.

The son, also named Dennis Thomson, is one of three men whose picture appears in a promotional billboard for the Red Sox that recently went up near Fenway Park.

The three are seen celebrating a home run by outfielder Trot Nixon that won a 2003 playoff game against the New York Yankees.

Thomson, of Quincy, was killed a year later by an alleged drunken driver in Mississippi. He was serving in the Air Force at the time.

The family has made several trips to see the billboard since a friend alerted them to it.

"We just stood there and looked and looked," Dennis' mother, Maureen Thomson, told The Patriot Ledger of Quincy. "One moment we were very emotional, crying, and the next, we were smiling and laughing because it was like he was back."

Added the elder Dennis Thomson in comments to The Boston Herald: "I feel like that's my kid up there saying, 'It's all right, Dad. Don't worry about me, Dad."'

The Red Sox had no idea who the fans were when they put up the billboard, but the team now says it is proud to have Dennis Thomson appear as a symbol for Red Sox Nation.

Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

My Acceptance Speech

Or should it be "acceptence" speech? Quick spell-check, and yep it's with an "A".

Okay, so here's an "acceptance" speech written by the very funny Stevn Carrill. I mean, Steve Carrell. I admire his work, and since he's from Concord, Mass (the next town over), it gives me hope that I can "make it" in Hollywood in my 30's/40's. But I hopefully I'll make it sooner.

Here's the video. Wait for it to load.



By the way, just read this comic book called Fables. Great stuff. Maybe I'll explain later.

I also broke down and got a wireless keyboard and mouse combo. It's nice son! I mean, real nice! Still no rolling-desk chair. Using the crappy, "that 70's show" style kitchen chairs that I got for free. The back's all twisted and broken. Next paycheck, I'm splurging!

Extra Steve Carrell videos.

THIS is what I've been talking about!

See, if you're a drug-dealer and a thug, why don't you use your entrepreneurial skills for good? Less risk, and just as much money! Read on:

Updated: 05:49 PM EST
Reality Show Makes Gang Members Business Owners
By JUAN CARLOS LLORCA, AP
Ten former gang members each competed for 14 days in a Guatemalan reality show.

GUATEMALA CITY (Feb. 3) - This gang-plagued Central American nation has found a new twist on reality television, putting wayward youths in a house and filming as community leaders turn them into small business owners.

On Friday, the 10 former gang members inaugurated the fruits of their efforts: a car wash and shoe repair shop. The producers of the show, scheduled to air for a week in March, hope it will serve as inspiration for other gang members looking for a way to turn their lives around.

Gangs have flourished in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras since the 1990s, when the United States began mass deportations of young Central American immigrants convicted of crimes.

Gang members now rule much of the region through fear, extorting money from business owners, forcing residents of poor neighborhoods to pay protection fees and slaughtering their enemies, sometimes leaving headless bodies in public places.

The three nations have tried to crackdown on gang activity by strengthening anti-gang laws and throwing young members in jail. But recently many people - including new Honduran President Manuel Zelaya - say that gang members must be rehabilitated and given opportunities to turn their lives around.

On Friday, former gang member Marcos Perez, 26, said he couldn't get a job after he was deported a year ago to Guatemala - after serving nearly three years in jail in the United States for selling drugs.

Perez, who left Guatemala at the age of 3 and who grew up in North Hollywood, California, said employers refused to hire him because of his gang tattoos.

But on Friday, as he washed and waxed cars at his new business with four other former gang members, he said was proud, "not just for myself, but for those that are down, that are in prison, and lost and want to take that step, to show them that there's another way out."

The shoe repair shop was scheduled to be inaugurated later Friday.

The five-episode reality gang show, dubbed "Challenge 10: Peace for the Ex," was sponsored by area businesses and the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID.

Harold Sibaja, a program director for USAID who attended the car wash inauguration, said the show was also aimed at making Guatemalans more tolerant of reformed gang members.

"We want to show people the human face of former gang members, many of whom left gang life three or four years ago but can't get work because of the mistrust" surrounding gangs, he said.

Viewers in March will witness how the 10 former gangsters lived together for two weeks in the same house, where volunteers taught them basic skills in accounting, customer service, human resources, sales, marketing, and motivation.

Both groups received $3,200 for startup costs, as well as help getting started. They settled on the car wash and shoe repair businesses because they felt both business models fit their skills the best.

As of Friday, however, they are mostly on their own - although they can still go back to their mentors for advice.

The gang members participating in the show already had abandoned gang life, some by joining an evangelical church. Under gang rules, religion and death are the only legitimate ways to get out of gangs.

Carlos Zuniga, president of Guatemala's usually conservative agricultural association, sponsored five of the gang members for the reality show.

"I'm not the same person I was (before the show) and I want this change that I experienced to reach other Guatemalans," Zuniga said

Sergio Gutierrez, who will be in charge of the car wash, knows that running a small business will be harder than the two-week taping period.

"Now that the (taping of) the show is over, is when the hard part will come," Gutierrez said. "We have to make the business work, but I know if we trust in God, He will help us."

02/03/06 16:51 EST

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

Haha, pffft.

Carl, you crack me up! I don't mean liberal, Daily Show host John Stewart!

I mean the real John Stewart. You know, the one who wears a Green-Lantern power ring full of tachyon energy that emits hard light constructs from his imagination to stop super villians.

You know, this one!:

Getting Cray with YouTube...again

I think this is funny. Don't know why, must be because it makes fun of celebrities.



This is James Lipton from "Inside The Actor's Studio" on Conan making fun of K.Federline's new single.

Fight!

Batman and Green Lantern (John Stewart version) versus Hulk Hogan and The Rock.

Who would win?

WHO WOULD WIN?!?

And why...

Brokeback Office Space Mountain

So my chair broke. It broke when I leaned too far back in to it. The break wasn't traumatic; like all things it was the fall preceding the accident that had the most drama to it.

I fell back in bullet-time slow motion. Why, you must be saying, it's because all things happen to us in slow motion as we experience them. Nuh-uh, not me!

I fell back in slow motion because I fell back in parts. It was as if my body decided, "okay, his butt fell, now let's wait for the back…"

My romp and my back fat went first. And as soon as those body parts settled, my chin was next, followed by my 2nd, 3rd and 4th chin. Next was my man-bosom and my stomach, which flew up to my face to check to see where my chins fell so that my stomach doesn't land on them.

Then, just as everything fell at slow-speed, it took them a minute to settle back in place before I could push myself up by my haunches.

So, now that I'm down a chair, someone mentioned maybe taking an extra chair from the office, since we have tons of open space now that some people have relocated. Now, I’m not going to, but ever since that idea was put in my head, I find it MIGHTY tempting. But I won't.

Makes no sense...

Why do I have a mash-up mix of Shania Twain's "Up" and Annie Lennox (nee Eurthymics) "Sweet Dreams" stuck in my head? It's keeping me up!