- Remember that scene in The Recruit where Al Pacino’s character tells Colin Farrell’s character that the way security works at the CIA is that intense scrutiny is placed on everyone going in, but once you’re inside, no one pays much attention to you? How comforting is it to know that courthouses seem to run the same way? Need proof? How about a freshly convicted felon simply walking out of a courtroom once his conviction is read and vanishing into thin air? It happened in Ohio, where Ronald Nesby, Jr. heard the judge read his conviction aloud in the Summit County Common Pleas courtroom, then stood up, walked to the back of the room where he hugged his brother, then walked away. A search of the area failed to turn up Nesby, who is now being sought by police. Seems like a fair question to ask how someone, especially a man with a felony drug conviction hanging over him, could just walk out of a courtroom with no one stopping him. What exactly is the bailiff there for? Did no one yell stop or give chase right away? Shouldn’t people have been bursting out into the hallway, shouting for someone to stop Nesby before he got away? Don’t know about you, but I would feel very safe in that courthouse, knowing felons are free to come and go as they please with no hassle.
- Suddenly the losers who camped out several days for the right to buy the new Sony PS-3 don’t seem quite so bad. When you contrast them with the two college students in North Carolina who severely beat a fellow student and stole two PS-3’s, people who just camped out for one and took it home to play it don’t seem as bad. Amazingly, things didn’t turn out too well for Peyton Strickland, one of the two dudes who stole the game consoles. He was shot to death by police who were serving an arrest warrant on he and his fellow PS-3 thief. Strickland, a student at Cape Fear Community College, and a friend who was a student at UNC-Wilmington stole the consoles from another UNCW student the day they came out in stores. The reason for police shooting Strickland? Apparently he was holding a game controller in his hand when answering the door and police mistook it for some sort of weapon. Great……and this was a special police task force whose job it is to help the university cops serve arrest warrants. I’d hate to see what might happen if non-specialized forces were in on this sort of thing……..But once again, good things always happen when one person is willing to assault and rob his fellow man for a video game system. Well done, guys.
- David Letterman will have at least one year to try and reach the top of the late night ratings without having to step over nemesis Jay Leno to get there. Leno has already announced his plans to retire from The Tonight Show in 2009, with Conan O’Brien taking over the spot. Letterman just inked a new deal to stay on The Late Show through 2010, meaning he’ll be on the air a minimum of one year after Leno steps down. Rumors have the value of the deal at $30 million annually, which is just stunning. Where else besides pro sports can you get $30 million a year for being runner up year in, year out? Even A-Rod doesn’t rake in that much jack for failing to be the best. My prediction: Letterman isn't going to overtake O’Brien, just like he couldn’t overtake Leno. The hangover effect from Leno’s tenure will carry O’Brien for the first year at least, and Conan might actually do a good job in the role. But hey, Dave can take solace in knowing he has those kick-ass Top 10 lists going for him………..
- Nobody wants Barry Bonds. Seriously, no Major League teams seem to be eager to sign the aging, roided up, size 11 head sporting, broken down slugger. Maybe they’re following the logic I’ve been laying out for a while now, that the hassle of bringing in Bar-roid isn't worth it. The intense media scrutiny, major distraction and surly demeanor weighed against bad knees, terrible defense and a few long home runs just doesn’t make sense. The San Francisco Giants, Bonds’ old team, are in no hurry to resign him but maintain that even though they have thrown crazy money at free agent outfielders Carlos Lee and Alfonso Soriano and continue to pursue a trade for slugging outfielder Manny Ramirez of the Boston Red Sox, that these things in no way mean they don’t want Bonds back. Sure, because what better way to say you want a player back than to try to sign or trade for three star players who happen to play the same position? It’s not that I think it’s a bad decision not to bring him back, I just wish ‘Frisco would be honest about their plans. Then again, if they don’t get any of these other guys and are forced, er, decide to bring back Bonds, they can’t openly say they don’t want him. Tough place to be in, but hey, they do possibly get the thrill of seeing Bar-roid break the MLB career home run record, knowing no one wants him to break it and everyone believes that he will do so on the strength of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.
- Wanna live on the moon? You’ve got about 18 years to prepare yourself if you do, because NASA is planning for life on the moon, with astronauts to reside at a permanent base near the lunar pole of the moon by 2024. The scientific research station would house the astronauts, who would clearly only be there in an attempt to escape paying taxes on earth and having to witness the horrible spectacle that is the N’Sync: 20 years later reunion tour. Even if it was for a year, though, who would volunteer to live on the moon? Your life would have to be pretty sad and devoid of connections to friends and family if you’d volunteer to leave the planet to live on the moon. Count me out, although speaking of N’Sync, Lance Bass, former member of the man band, did try to become a cosmonaut a couple years ago, so maybe check with him. Actually, why not take all former man banders - 98 Degrees, N’Sync, Backstreet Boys, all of them - and have them all go live on the moon. Seems a fair punishment for the music they subjected us to. Don’t bother waiting for the moon station to be built either, send ‘em up there now, let them fend for themselves, I’m sure they’ll be fine.
- Back and forth, back and forth………watching President Bush and his stance on Iraq is like watching a game of old-school Pong, only with less intelligent participants involved. W now wants a new direction for the mess known as the Iraq war and is meeting with anyone and everyone who can wear a suit and walk upright in the hopes that someone will give him a good idea. How great is it that he’s not even smart enough to come up with any good ideas on his own, so now he’s meeting with groups and individuals, both inside and outside of the government, seeking recommendations. Actually, maybe we can take this a step further: have W go to his ranch in Crawford, stay there and doodle in his coloring books and allow everyone else to figure this thing out. Have him stay there until, oh, I’d say January 2008…………….
- A word of advice to all music and award show producers: if an act, any act, tells you they plan to perform with giant, eight-foot tall candy canes on stage, you’ll want to pull the plug on their act at that point. It took about two seconds of the very beginning of Fergie’s performance on Monday night’s Billboard Music Awards for me to decide that I was better off flipping back to the channel I was actually watching and suffer through a commercial where Wilford Brimley tries to sell life insurance to the elderly than I would be watching the skanky Fergie sing/lip sync one of her lyrically stunted, musically inadequate songs. Enjoy your time as the new Britney Spears, Fergie, because soon enough everyone will realize that you too are a talentless fraud whose only real ability is looking hot and wearing next to nothing on stage.
- In TV land….what a great “fall finale” for Heroes, which along with Veronica Mars has to be the co-MVP for this TV season thus far. While it’s still exceptionally lame to slap the fall finale tag on a show in an attempt to give it extra clout in the ratings, this week’s heroes ratcheted up the excitement another few notches. The writers and producers continue to do a great job of weaving together the lives of a dozen or so characters from literally all over the world and crossing their paths gradually in a way that keeps you interested while not seeming forced or contrived. The end of the episode dropped what appears to be a major bombshell about the impending explosion in New York, although we all know that these teasers often aren't what they seem to be once things are fleshed out in future episodes. Regardless, I look forward eagerly to January 22, when Heroes returns, along with Prison Break.
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