- Nobody has ever confused Britney Spears for a Mensa member. But it was funny to see that she was reportedly spotted buying a copy of her own album, apparently unaware of the economics of record sales. See, Brit, when you pay, say even the $9.99 discounted amount your terrible CD was probably on sale for in the “bargain” rack, not all of the money you paid goes back to you just because you are the one who sings (not sure I’d call what she does singing, but anyhow) on the album. You might get a small fraction of the sale price back, but in this equation, you lose money regardless. Besides, I am pretty sure the record company could have given you a spare copy, one that a member of their office staff had been using as a coaster or to prop up the uneven coffee table with one leg shorter than the others. But hey, it looks like hanging out with uber-skank Paris Hilton has really boosted Brit’s already sky-high IQ…….
- Taco Bell patrons can stop worrying….well, no they can’t, they’re still eating the semi-food products that the Bell passes off as Mexican cuisine, but they can worry a little less after health officials reportedly isolated the offending item that caused an E. coli outbreak in this great, overweight nation of ours. The lettuce was to blame, so all of you who had lettuce in the “What ingredient in Taco Bell food is most likely to make you ill” office pool can collect your prize. The allegation that lettuce is to blame was met with a predictably prickly response from farmers, who fear that the claims will harm their crops and overall business. Farmers have it tough, I think we can all agree on that, very hard job, very long hours, very little pay, but fellas, if the lettuce made people sick, I think letting the public know that is more important than worrying about your bottom line financially. As someone who generally avoids leafy green veggies and especially Taco Bell food, I am not worried, but a lot of people are, so simmer down guys.
- Amazing how cavalier our society has become when sports owners or city/state officials announce plans for a proposed new stadium complex that will cost hundreds of millions (or in this case, a billion….yes, billion with a “b”). I know that these plans can sometimes end up as pipe dreams, but still when Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones announces plans for a $1 billion stadium complex, I hafta take notice. Jones wants to lure in the Olympics, college football’s national title game, college basketball’s Final Four, the Super Bowl and the annual Texas-Oklahoma college football game, among other things, but I am going to go on record as voting no on this one. Well, unless Jones himself funds or finds private funding for at least $900 million of the project. I know, Texas Stadium, the ‘Boys current home, is considered a dump in NFL circles, but please don’t stick Dallas/Texas taxpayers with an astronomical bill for the next several decades because you want a stadium that will, most importantly in your mind, make you a lot more money.
- A good media hoax will bring hearty laughter into anyone’s day, that’s for sure. Orson Wells’ War of the Worlds radio program back in the 1930s, which pretended that the world was being invaded by space aliens and caused mass hysteria and some suicides, was a rip-roarin’ good time, right? So the Belgian TV station RBTF network thought it would throw out a hoax of its own, interrupting regular programming to announce that the Dutch-speaking part of the country had declared its independence and that the king and queen had fled the country. For some reason, the royal family was not down with the hoax. RBTF defended its actions, saying they helped to show “the importance of debate on the country’s future.” Because I’m sure that’s all you were trying to do, RBTF, is stimulate debate on the future of Belgium. Boosting your ratings or profile had nothing to do with it. Why don’t you all think a little harder next time in your production meetings so that when an idea like this is proposed, you can all put down your Belgian waffles, search deep inside those apparently very tiny brains of yours and come up with a better idea. Now pass me a waffle and some syrup and stop wasting everyone’s time with your stupid shenanigans.
- For years, some Beatles fans have been pissed at Yoko Ono, believing (and perhaps rightfully so) that she ultimately led to the breakup of the Fab Four. Now, John Lennon’s widow has attracted a new kind of whack job who is out to get her. Well, more specifically she hired and fired this particular whack job, but never mind on that. Her former chauffer threatened to release embarrassing pictures and recordings of her and potentially have her killed unless she paid him $2 million. Koral Karsan is the man behind this brilliant scheme, and now he is going to end up in jail. Nobody - chauffer, butler, maid, gardener, pool guy - likes it when a rich person breaks them off, but Koral would have been better off waxing his car, sweeping out the interior, apply some Armor-All to the dashboard and trying to find a new rich person to ferry around. Now, he can contemplate his own idiocy behind bars for a little while.
- “You’ll never take me alive, coppers!” Sounds like a line from the Wild, Wild West or a good gangster movie set in the 1920s, right? Well, Albany, Ga. motorcycle dealer and newly-minted felon is either a big fan of those eras or he simply shares my general distaste for authority figures and an aversion to going to prison. Wright, sentenced to 27 months in prison for bike smuggling (not sure if they were illegal bikes from the black market or he simply smuggled them without paying the proper import tariffs) but failed to report to prison and instead went on the lam. Furthermore, he sent an email to various news organizations vowing “not to be taken alive.” That takes an impressive combination of testicular fortitude and sheer stupidity, but I hafta say in some way I admire Wright. He’ll be caught eventually and have his sentence lengthened, sure, so in that sense he’d have been better off reporting to prison, serving his time and hoping he’d get paroled in 18 months or so for good behavior. Still, it’s always good to see someone give the finger to law enforcement and fight to stay free. As one of my favorite quotes says, “If bound, fight to break free. If you are free, fight to stay that way.” Stay tuned, Andrew Wright “On the Run Watch” is still in its first week…….
- The Tampa Bay Devil Rays are just so darned cute, trying to imitate their big brothers in the American League East, the Boston Red Sox. The Sox pay $51.1 million to negotiate with Japanese pitching phenom Daisuke Matsuzaka, so the Rays go out and find their own Japanese import, pay their own negotiating fee of $4.5 million to the Japanese team of Akinori Iwamura, the Yakult Swallows, and sign Iwamura. The Rays are so pathetic, they find the D-list equivalent of Matsuzaka, just like they always end up with the bargain basement, homeless man’s version of every player of value in baseball. They sign big name managers past their primes, aging sluggers, knock-off Japanese players, each cementing the Rays’ position as MLB’s biggest doormat.
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