After attending the wake of my wife's uncle last night I have decided I would like a simple ceremony when it is my time. First I want to be cremated: No coffin, no wake, no burial. Just my ashes put into a nice container. Before my ashes are spread over Haleakala National Park just after sunrise, I would like a simple ceremony starting with a prayer:
Then a song:
Once the ceremony is over, my ashes can just be released into the air: Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Thank you for coming.
PS: If Will and Sam could be there for the ceremony, that would be a bonus.
If you start a new browser and enter in voteforthemilf.com you will end up on John McCain's presidential website and even more specific, redirected for a welcome video from Sarah Palin. Note this will only work once because of a cookie written by VFTM. Check out the web in action:
In a releated story, sarahpalin.com is for sale. Wonder if sarahpalinisamilfsoyoushouldvoteforher.com has been taken yet???
While waiting to pick up my wife from work, I walked around the grocery store looking for absolutely nothing in particular when I came across a DVD Movie display offering 50 titles for the low, low price of $9.99. While checking out the 2nd side of a v shaped display rack, I noticed several films featuring the same actor. Who do you think was featured is some many films? Sam Jackson? Brad Pitt? Bruce Willis? Nope, none of those guys.
Ok quick think of 3 movies that star Tom Selleck? Did you remember 3 Men and a Baby or Mr. Baseball? Nah wasn't any of those. The list of titles in the rack were: Death in Paradise, Night Passage, Stone Cold, Monte Walsh, Crossfire Trail, The Shadow Riders, and Runaway. Other than Runaway [which I have actually seen, don't waste your time], the rest are all made for TV westerns. I couldn't believe how many movies Magnum has been in that feature him with a mustache and a cowboy hat. Sadly that is how far down his career has dropped from his heyday's of the early to mid 80's. Maybe covering 14% of grocery store discount DVD rack is his consolation for not getting the part of Indiana Jones.
The original Knight Rider was campy and corny but totally worked in the mid 80's. Now NBC is attempting to resurrect the franchise with Michael Knight's son and a brand new KITT [Knight Industries Three Thousand]. After watching the pilot, here are the reasons it will be off the air before the end of the World Series:
3. The Cast.
The cast is just too darn pretty. We are to suspend belief and just accept that chiseled chin, super black ops trooper Michael Tracuer is the son of Michael [Mitch Buchannon/Germany's Favorite Singer/Heavy Drinker]Hasselhoff or that smoking hot Sarah Graiman [Deanna Russo]is the off spring of Charles Graiman [Bruce "A face only a mother could love" Davison]? The rest of the primary cast [which consists of either government officials on hand to watch over the project or really, really smart people who help run KITT] are also way too good looking for their jobs.
When will Hollywood stop casting models as nuclear physicist. I would rather see the guys from The Big Bang Theory running the lab instead of this group. The only plus in casting is Paul Campbell [Derek from the failed pilot Nobody's Watching] who looks and acts more like a nerd than a hero.
2. The Plot.
Instead of being a privately funded public justice program, the new Knight Rider is a quasi-government super agent program. The pilot's plot is so thin, that while escaping from a botched assignment, KITT takes a missile where the car is covered in an inextinguishable burning plasma. Since the inside temperature of the car is rising, the stars of the show are forced to undress [only to their under ware mind you] to stay cool. Yeah it will be the thin cocktail dress that would kill her. I guess it must have worked because before the lead characters pass out from the heat, they are not even sweating.
I'm not sure the writers even understand that the premise of the original show was "The Lone Ranger with a car". The new Michael has a side kick, government agents assisting and a team of people at the home base. And on top of that, they don't even know how to use KITT within the story lines or story within Knight Rider universe. In one scene, KITT informs him that a car is approaching but instead of blocking the on coming car or getting Michael inside, KITT sits by and watches a ex-black ops chick hop out and give Michael a quick beat down and she takes his target prisoner and drives off. In the very next scene, Michael and KITT are unable to catch a sick looking Bentley convertible [but he was able to have a full blown conversation with Sarah along the way] even though earlier they were able to crank KITT up to 377 miles an hour to try and put out a all consuming fire on it's shell.
Beyond the whole car problems, the show also falls into too many action/drama pitfalls. First you have the opening chase scene where numerous "guys in black" try to stop/detain our hero. Luckily he is a fighting master and can knock them all out with a couple of quick punches and kicks. For those he can't, he just runs away [with sweetheart Sarah in toe - in high heels no less] and luckily for them the bad guys can't shoot for shit. These guys couldn't hit the side of a barn from the inside. Are all evil organizations made up of shooting club's rejects? Must be because these guys are masters of spraying walls with rounds of bullets from automatic weapons but can't hit a single person along the way. Also the whole will they/Won't they hook up story between Michael and Sarah is a tired. It should honestly be retired unless your going to give it a real twist, like giving new meaning to the term "A guy who really loves his car".
1. The Car.
Firs off, a tricked out black mustang sticks out like a sore thumb. Yeah the original was an all black Pontiac Firebird Trans Am but there was something cool about the car's simplicity with all of it's power hidden in plain view.
Having all this new style in a Mustang body is only the beginning: Apparently the new KITT is really advanced. It is a transformer [so far we have seen Attack Mode and Pickup Truck Mode - which also includes subway track tire mode, ugh]. What's next, Helicopter Mode? Oh never mind, KITT can fly too and has an awesome Fast and the Furious under mount with a glowing KR logo and everything, which is silly since the car is named KITT and the driver's initials are MT.
Speaking of having everything, did I see a hospital in the glove box??? I know KITT is very advanced but a whole emergency department in the glove compartment? Sure that works fine when a guy gets his thumb cut off but what if Michael had a broken femur that needed to be set? I'd like to see him get his whole leg in that small compartment.
Lastly is the use of Val Kilmer as the voice of the new KITT. Not that it's him but viewers are expecting something from the Iceman, but all we get is a monotone compu-voice - which we should. It would work better with an unknown, a voice over actor or why not just hire William Daniels to reprise his role, he's still alive? I guess maybe they were just helping out a friend since Kilmer's last 4 films - Columbus Day, Felon, Delgo or Conspiracy - are all ones I'm sure most people have never heard of.
In the immortal words of the Original Michael Knight, KITT they need you buddy. So one better jump in and help or this show will be gone faster than a black mustang with turbo boost.
Author Robin Goldstein got curious about Wine Spectator's Award of Excellence while researching his book entitled The Wine Trials [blind wine tasting book which boasts 100 wines under $15 that outscored $50-$150 wines]. So using Microsoft Word, he cooked up a fictional restaurant, a menu and a good sized wine list. The "restaurant" is called Osteria L’Intrepido and is "located" in Milan Italy. Goldstein's menu included, what he terms, a fun amalgamation of somewhat bumbling nouvelle-Italian recipes. And the piece de resistance is his wine list which included more than 250 wines including whites, reds, and sparkling wines–some of which scored well in the magazine. However the "reserve" list he included for Wine Spectator's review was largely chosen from among some of the lowest-scoring Italian wines in Wine Spectator over the past few decades.
In order to make the application appear genuine, Goldstein also obtained a Milan phone/fax number, as required by the application, and established a small online presence. With all this completed, he submitted a cover letter, the $250 fee and his menus" for Wine Spectator's inspection. Wouldn't you know it, they gave him the Award of Excellence even though he didn't exist and was never contacted for verification.
With an estimated income of over 600k from the award each year and apparently very little effort, Wine Spectator appears to making quite a profit from this "award" system. I'm kind of waiting for Wine Enthusiast to create a contest to see how many people can get this award just to shine a very bright light on what appears to be more of a sham than the rest of domestic awards combined.
Do you find playing the guitar difficult? Does the thought of keeping the beat on the drums boggle your mind? Do you suffer from stage fright imagining singing in front of an audience? Well for this guy, no in the correct answer to all three. Check out a real one-man band:
What happens when you pit the video sharing giant YouTube vs the gaming titan Wii? Check out the video of YouTube vs Wario Land?
Wario Land is taking the hand held user interface to a new level with quick motions, including shaking, to get your character to react on the screen. Of course the YouTube page reacting as well is pretty darn clever.
For me I'm just waiting for the Wii lightsaber to come out before I pick up a Wii system.
Yes We Can: Voices of a Grassroots Movement CD went on sale on Friday exclusively through Obama's campaign website. The CD contains many perviously released songs but does contain a fwe new tracks, most notibly John Legend's Pride In The Name Of Love and Malik Yusef's Promised Land [which features Adam Levine and Kanye "Bush Doesn't Care About Black People" West]. Here is the complete track listing:
1. Eternity - Lionel Richie 2. Signed Sealed Delivered - Stevie Wonder 3. Waiting On The World To Change - John Mayer 4. American Prayer - Dave Stewart 5. Battle Cry - Shontelle 6. Make It Better - Los Lonely Boys 7. Pride In The Name Of Love - John Legend 8. I Have A Dream - BeBe Winans 9. Am I All Alone - Suai 10. One Is The Magic # - Jill Scott 11. Love & Hope - Ozomatli 12. Looking East - Jackson Browne 13. Out of Our heads - Sheryl Crow 14. Promised Land - Malik Yusef with Kanye West and Adam Levine 15. Hold On - Yolanda Adams 16. America The Beautiful - Keb' Mo' 17. America - Ken Stacey 18. Wide River - Buddy Miller
Meanwhile the McCain camp said it had no plans to release a CD of its own however spokesman Tucker Bounds commented "It's ironic that on a day when the economy is in turmoil, Barack Obama fails to release an economic plan, but instead chooses a celebrity rock album." While I like the idea of leveraging the internet and all of it's wonder for this year's presidential race I have to agree that in the past week and into next week everyone is now wondering what our next president has planned to help solidify our currently very volitale markets. Hopefully in the next few weeks and during the debates, the canidates can focus on what they plan to do instead of what the other has or has not done.
Ever wonder where Salt and Pepper comes from [the often used condiment not the mid 80's hip hop group from Queens, New York]? We reach for these spices every day yet I wasn't sure how that wonderful black and white powery substaces got in my kitchen. So let's take a look...
Salt for home use is produced using 3 basic methods: solar evaporation of seawater or saline lakewater, solution mining and vacuum pan evaporation and conventional deep-shaft (rock salt) mining. Solar salt production occurs when salt water evaporates in successive ponds until the brine is fully concentrated and salt crystallizes on the floor of the crystallizing ponds. Solution mining [and deep-shaft mining] are methods of actually mining for existing salt deposits. Lastly [and not least because it is the most used method] is vacuum pan evaporation where we use vaccum machinery to emulate the solar evaporation method expect it is completely controlled. Did you know that every cell of your body contains salt and that salt is used in manufacturing an estimated 14,000 products? Neither did I.
Pepper, on the other hand, is actually the fruit of the Black Pepper plant which is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae. In dried form, the fruit is often referred to as peppercorns and by grinding this fruit into a powder you get black ground pepper. The black pepper plant is native to South India and is extensively cultivated there and elsewhere in tropical regions. Dried ground pepper is one of the most common spices in European cuisine and its descendants and ground black peppercorn, usually referred to simply as "pepper", may be found on nearly every dinner table in some parts of the world, often alongside table salt. Did you know that Peppercorns are, by monetary value, the most widely traded spice in the world, accounting for 20 percent of all spice imports in 2002 and Vietnam has become the world's largest producer and exporter of pepper (82,000 long tons in 2003)? Some of that I actually did sort of know.
Well there you have it, Salt and Pepper - from the oean waters to the fruit of the vine, they are our most basic spices. Having both been used for the last 4000 years, these two common household items are absolutely in effect and here to stay.
Hundreds of Worcester residents turned out yesterday to vote in the primary election and they did so at their local grocery store. The city is the first in the state to put polling places in supermarkets, and the move drew not only rave reviews from shoppers and voters in Worcester but attention from other cities and towns. The goal, David J. Rushford, the Worcester city clerk said, was to increase voter turnout and boost business at the stores, while at the same time eliminating the use of schools as polling places.
Price Chopper on the north side of the city, a Shaw's Supermarket on the southwest side, and a Stop & Shop and a Big Y World Class Market in the southeast each were used as poll centers and it looks like it was a great success. I hope to see more cities and towns adopt the use of businesses like this in the future because they will be easier to use, less riddled with school children and could help boost local economies.
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Senator John McCain's senior domestic policy adviser, said Tuesday that the BlackBerry mobile e-mail device was a "miracle that John McCain helped create." Of course McCain couldn't have invented the BlackBerry until Gore invented the internet [or internets as President Bush would say].
Holtz-Eakin was discussing the nation's economic woes with reporters, said that McCain -- who has struggled to stress his economic credentials -- did have experience dealing with the economy, pointing to his time on the Senate Commerce Committee. Pressed to provide an example of what McCain had accomplished on that committee, Holtz-Eakin said the senator did not have jurisdiction over financial markets, then he held up his Blackberry, telling reporters: "He did this." "Telecommunications of the United States, the premiere innovation in the past 15 years, comes right through the Commerce Committee. So you're looking at the miracle that John McCain helped create," Holtz-Eakin said. "And that's what he did. He both regulated and deregulated the industry." While Holtz-Eakin was just making a point, I'm not sure his words will help McCain's campaign.
Although the fall tv season no longer starts on a given week, tonight marks the unofficial begin of the new TV season with the 2 hour season premiere of Prison Break. With some 18 new shows on the schedule, there should be something here worth watching.
Monday
New Shows: Worst Week (CBS), America's Toughest Jobs (NBC) and My Own Worst Enemy (NBC) Best New Premise: Worst Week - Sam is an entertainment magazine editor who will do anything to please the parents of his girlfriend, Melanie...but instead becomes a one-man wrecking crew whenever he's around them. Show most likely to be back in 2009: America's Toughest Jobs - Even bad reality shows seem to make it back. Favorite Returning Show: How I Met Your Mother (CBS)
Tuesday
New Shows: Opportunity Knocks (ABC), The Mentalist (CBS), 90210 (CW) Privileged (CW), and Fringe (FOX) Best New Premise: Fringe - FBI Special Agent Dunham teams with our generation's Einstein, Dr. Bishop, to investigate a brewing storm of unexplained phenomena, called "The Pattern". Show most likely to be back in 2009: Fringe because Abrams has a knack for creating very successful [Alias/Lost] shows. Favorite Returning Show: Eli Stone (ABC)
Wednesday
New Shows: Gary Unmarried (CBS), Stylista (CW), Do Not Disturb (FOX) and Knight Rider (NBC) Best New Premise: Do Not Disturb - A workplace comedy set at one of New York City's hottest and hippest hotels with chic decor, stylish staff and celebrity clientele. Behind the scenes, however, the upstairs/downstairs dynamic tells quite a different story. Show most likely to be back in 2009: Knight Rider because it seems like NBC will do anything to get this show off the ground again. Favorite Returning Show: None
Thursday
New Shows: Life on Mars (ABC), Eleventh Hour (CBS), Kath & Kim (NBC) and SNL Weekend Update (NBC) Best New Premise: Kath & Kim - Recently divorced Kim moves back in with her mom Kath however Kath is not about to cater to her princess daughter's every whim, as she has in the past. Show most likely to be back in 2009: SNL Weekend Update because it is by far the best of SNL. Favorite Returning Show: The Office (NBC)
Friday
New Shows: The Ex List (CBS) and Crusoe (NBC) Best New Premise: The Ex List - Bella learns from a psychic that she's already dated her future husband AND there's a catch: if she doesn't find him in the next year, she'll remain alone forever! Show most likely to be back in 2009: The Ex List because I think Crusoe is going to bomb. Favorite Returning Show: Life (NBC)
Make sure those DVR's have been reprogrammed to include the new shows you want to check out [and not the ones you no longer are interested in].
Ok quick think of 3 movies that star Tom Selleck? Did you remember 3 Men and a Baby or Mr. Baseball? Nah wasn't any of those. The list of titles in the rack were: Death in Paradise, Night Passage, Stone Cold, Monte Walsh, Crossfire Trail, The Shadow Riders, and Runaway. Other than Runaway [which I have actually seen, don't waste your time], the rest are all made for TV westerns. I couldn't believe how many movies Magnum has been in that feature him with a mustache and a cowboy hat. Sadly that is how far down his career has dropped from his heyday's of the early to mid 80's. Maybe covering 14% of grocery store discount DVD rack is his consolation for not getting the part of 
