Dying Boy Brought In To Cheer Up KC Royals

Harsh. Real harsh. But I thought the closing sentence was priceless.

Pretty much the best State Fair ads that I know of

Napoleon and his best friend Pedro did some pretty funny TV and radio advertisements for the recently completed Utah State Fair. You can find them at the Utah State Fair site (click on "Napoleon's Sweet Ads"), or you can find Flash-formatted versions here.

Show a little faith, there's magic in the night

The upcoming "Born To Run" CD/DVD package is a product aimed right at my heart and wallet. As reported by Backstreets, "Hammersmith Odeon, London 1975 will be the first and only full-length concert film ever released of Bruce and the E Street Band's first 25 years" (i.e. the years of the band that actually mattered). And the "Born To Run" album is getting a much-needed remastering -- I love it but always found the sound quality to be a bit lacking. Lastly there's a "making of the album" DVD that sounds interesting. So basically I'm ready and eager to add this to my Wish List. Amazon, why isn't this in your database yet?!

Emergency landing televised on JetBlue flight

Ok, this would fairly suck. But I suppose it introduces an interesting question: if you were a passenger, would you want to watch news coverage of your own flight? One the one hand, you might appreciate the ability to learn as much information as possible. On the other, we're talking about the 24-hour news channels here -- not exactly a great resource for real information.

Is anyone else reminded of that scene in Airplane! where two TV news talking heads do a "Point/Counterpoint"? "Shanna, they bought their tickets, they knew what they were getting into. I say, let 'em crash!"

But First

One day, CBS's Julie Chen will shed her "robotic" image and show the world her wonderful, bubbly, spontaneous personality. But first....

You tech billionaire guys are so retarded, GOSH!

True geek that I am, I've been trying to hunt down this puppy ever since I first read about it earlier this week. So, presenting the Bill Gates/Napoleon Dynamite spoof video (courtesy of Longhorn Blogs) that was shown during Gates' keynote speech at a Microsoft conference on Tuesday. It's a bootleg so it looks and sounds kinda crappy, but it's still pretty entertaining for those who liked the movie.

Judge declares Pledge unconstitutional

I know that this decision will cause an uproar among conservatives (and probably a fair number of non-conservatives), but I just want to make one point that many people aren't aware of:

The original Pledge, written by a Baptist minister in 1892, didn't even contain the words "under God". This phrase was added 62 years later (in 1954) by the McCarthy-led Congress following a campaign that was sponsored by the Knights of Columbus. It was a fairly overt ploy by conservatives to change a patriotic oath into a sort of prayer.

I don't care greatly whether this judicial decision stands. You've got to pick your battles, and there are certainly more important ones than this. But it's useful to know the history.

Master of Madison Avenue's domain

Bryan Curtis of Slate discusses the appearance of Seinfeld catchphrases in TV commercials for various products. Apparently the original writers aren't receiving any royalties from these shenanigans, which sounds like good cause for a lawsuit. Just so long as they don't come after me -- "Vandelay" has been my nom de plume in three different online games so far.

The 800-pound gorilla in the game rooom

Ok, a break from the ongoing tragedy.

The New York Times discusses how "World of Warcraft" has completely dominated the computer gaming world. The sales comparison graph alone is pretty astounding, but the graph covers only the U.S. sales. "Warcraft" has also sold millions of copies in Europe and Asia.

I've been game-hopping for the past several months, including the family-friendly Toontown, a 10-day trial of Warcraft, a few months with the superhero-themed City of Heroes and a little-known golf multiplayer called Shot Online. All have been fun, and I expect that I'll continue to try lots of online games over the next few years. But as the article mentions, there are only so many that you can afford at once, both financially and time-wise.

Bad water

The good news: they are now starting to pump the water out of the city and back into Lake Pontchartrain, the mouth of the Mississippi River and/or the Gulf of Mexico.

The bad news: the water being pumped back out is so filthy that it will probably permanently damage Lake Pontchartrain, the mouth of the Mississippi River and/or the Gulf of Mexico.

Of course there's no real choice here -- emptying out the city takes priority over any environmental damage to the nearby waters. But it certainly seems to complicate the chances of New Orleans becoming a liveable city again.