Inevitable movie news, basketball with a smattering of racist commentary and a Heroes recap

- That was the sound of inevitability and it sounded an awful lot like a cheesy vampire romance movie that drew in female moviegoers by the droves and won the weekend box office race with grossed an astounding $140.7 million. The Twilight Saga: New Moon was the expected champion at the box office this weekend and the movie delivered, exceeding even the loftiest expectations en route to the biggest autumn opening weekend in history and the third biggest three-day debut ever. The teen vampire-romance triangle still trails The Dark Knight ($158.4 million) and Spider-Man 3 ($151.1 million) for the biggest opening day weekend, but that’s good company to be in. The massive take more than doubled the opening weekend of the first movie in the Twilight series, a paltry tally of $69.6 million. Not surprisingly, 80 percent of New Moon tickets went to women. The age demographics were evenly balanced, so we can’t mock one particular age group over another for forking over $10 bucks for such a corny, cheesy movie. A movie I liked a whole lot more, the Sandra Bullock-led The Blind Side, brought in an estimated $34.5 million for second place. It’s the best opening gross of Bullock’s career, fueled by an audience that was 59 percent female – curious for a movie whose main premise is football. The third-place finisher was the end-of-the-world flick 2012, which dropped 59 percent on its second weekend, taking in $26.5 million for $108.2 million total thus far. The weekend was not so kind to was the animated sci-fi comedy Planet 51, which flopped in its opening weekend and finished with just $12.6 million for fourth place. Rounding out the top five was Disney’s A Christmas Carol continued to hold on strong, which held strong and dropped only 45 percent for $12.2 million and $79.8 million total. The sixth-place finisher, Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire, continued to be a sensation by pulling in $11 million for sixth place on just 629 screens. In only three weeks of limited release, Precious has grossed $21.4 million and plenty of Oscar buzz. Another film in limited release, Nicolas Cage’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, opened in 27 theaters to a $9,519 per theater average. Overall, box office earnings were significantly higher than the same weekend last year, 59 percent higher (that’s Willie Nelson high, y’all). So clearly a lot of people are heading to the movies and ask Thanksgiving weekend tends to be a boom weekend at the local multiplex, expect similarly elevated figures next weekend as well……….

- Who doesn’t like their NBA television broadcast with a dash of blatant racism? For viewers of the Los Angeles Clippers’ game against the Denver Nuggets at Staples Center Friday, the broadcast on Fox Sports Prime Ticket cable network contained heavy doses of racial insensitivity, stupidity, ignorance and bigotry. Those qualities came courtesy of longtime Clippers play-by-play announcer Ralph Lawler and color analyst Michael Smith, who were suspended one game by the for their comments about Memphis center Hamed Haddadi. Late in the game, Haddadi, who is Iranian, entered the game and when he did, let’s just say Lawler and Smith weren’t exactly spouting top-notch basketball analysis. Let’s read the transcript from the broadcast:

Smith: "Look who's in."

Lawler: "Hamed Haddadi. Where's he from?"

Smith: "He's the first Iranian to play in the NBA." (Smith pronounced Iranian as "Eye-ranian,” grade-A racist style)

Lawler: "There aren't any Iranian players in the NBA," repeating Smith's mispronunciation.

Smith: "He's the only one."

Lawler: "He's from Iran?"

Smith: "I guess so."

Lawler: "That Iran?"

Smith: "Yes."

Lawler: "The real Iran?"

Smith: "Yes."

Lawler: "Wow. Haddadi that's H-A-D-D-A-D-I."

Smith: "You're sure it's not Borat's older brother?"

Smith: "If they ever make a movie about Haddadi, I'm going to get Sacha Baron Cohen to play the part."

Lawler: "Here's Haddadi. Nice little back-door pass. I guess those Iranians can pass the ball."

Smith: "Especially the post players.

Lawler: "I don't know about their guards."

Gotta love how Lawler was magnanimous enough to admit that although he his stereotyping the passing skills of Iranian post players, he’s not sure about their guards. Very big of you, Ralph. Also, as insensitive as these comments are, if you are going to let your inner racist out on the air, at least make sure your cultural references are accurate. In other words, you tools tried to crack Borat jokes about an Iranian player when Borat, the fictional character created by Sascha Baren Cohen in one of the most overrated movies of all-time, was from Kazakhstan. Nice try, morons. Not surprisingly, a viewer took offense to the comments and e-mailed the network, which reviewed the exchange and decided to suspend Lawler and Smith for one game. Lawler, 71, is in his 31st season doing Clippers games, and Smith is in his 12th. Somehow, in 2,400-plus games of broadcasting Clippers games, Lawler managed to suppress both his inner bigot and inner moron enough to avoid any comments along the lines of his cracks about Haddadi. The one-game suspension meant that Lawler and Smith did not work Friday’s game against Denver, leaving Michael Eaves and Don MacLean, who regularly serve as halftime and postgame analysts on the Clippers telecasts, to fill in. In announcing the suspension, Fox also made sure to issue a statement denouncing the comments while also voicing support for their two embattled broadcasters. “We regret the remarks made by Clippers announcers Michael Smith and Ralph Lawler during Wednesday's telecast," Fox said in a statement about 2½ hours before the game. "While we believe that Michael and Ralph did not intend their exchange to be offensive, the comments were inappropriate. "We extend our apologies to Hamed Haddadi of the Memphis Grizzlies and to anyone who was offended. We have addressed the situation with Michael and Ralph and have taken appropriate action.” Thanks for that, Fox, although if it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer my basketball broadcasts without blatant racism from here on out………

- Journey with me to the great state of Vermont, where one escaped prison inmate can thank none other than toothpaste for helping to facilitate his jail break. Robert Hale is an inmate at the Sullivan County Jail – albeit on a bit of a sabbatical as of this moment – who took advantage of a new multi-million dollar expansion project at the jail and some decidedly McGyver-like ingenuity to make his escape. Jail officials say Hale used a piece of metal to carve out a hole in the ceiling of his jail cell and by channeling his inner Andy Dufresne (The Shawshank Redemption, still an all-time great movie), he was able to cover the hole using toothpaste during the weeks he worked on it. While Tim Robbins’ character used giant posters of famous actresses to cover the hole he carved in the wall, Hale used what he had on hand and the toothpaste clearly did the job. "He proceeded through the sheet rock ceiling, gained egress into a new area of the jail that just got completed construction and upon getting into that area, found his way out through a window," explained Ross Cunningham, the superintendent of the Sullivan County Jail. If you are in the area of the Sullivan County Jail and wondering how concerned you should be about an escaped convict roaming free, I’d advise you not to panic. Hale was awaiting trial for armed robbery, but law enforcement officials do not believe he is dangerous. They do advise you to contact the police immediately if you spot him, although I’m guessing he won’t be sporting that orange prison jumpsuit he was wearing the last time he was seen by jail personnel. State police lent a helping hand Thursday morning in the quest to find Hale, using their K-9 unit to search for him without success. "We have two different K-9 searches executed this morning both lead to relatively close to the same area and they came to a dead end. The trail ended," N.H. State Police Lt. Jerome Maslan said. "We assume at that point he may have gotten picked up by a vehicle but we are not sure." Hale is a former resident of the Claremont area, which is located less than 10 miles from the jail. A smart criminal (a bit of an oxymoron) would avoid Claremont like the plague because it’s the first place authorities will look for him. However, most criminals are behind bars to begin with because they’re idiots, so Hale steering clear of his former hometown isn't a given. His family has been contacted, but police aren’t saying whether they are cooperating with the search. Cooperating family or not, I do have to say that this is a brilliant move by Hale. In no way does breaking out of jail before you can even go on trial make you seem guilty. I’m sure that once he’s captured, returned to jail and put on trial, the jury for his armed robbery case (and likely escape charges) won't view him at all differently in light of this little incident……….

- I am a little disappointed right now in the 70 students at UC Santa Cruz in California who caved in to The Man and surrendered the administration building they had occupied for three days rather than be arrested for the cause they claim to support, stopping the recently passed tuition increase for all state schools by the California Board of Regents. The students faced arrest if they stayed inside the building, but what makes your point better than images of angry students being led from an administration building in handcuffs while shouting at the cameras and inciting the crowd? No, it doesn’t make me feel any better that university officials claimed in a statement that, "students who participated in this incident face possible criminal and/or student judicial sanctions." The protesting students did leave a nice parting gift, as Kerr Hall, the Santa Cruz campus' administration building, won't be ready for its normal duties Monday because some areas were damaged and left in disarray. Photographs from the scene show trash scattered about, a moved refrigerator, broken tables and other items used to barricade doors. The occupation began shortly after the regents board approved a 32 percent increase in tuition Thursday. The standoff dragged on until 6:30 a.m. PST Sunday, when campus police presented the protesters with an ultimatum: vacate the building or face arrest. Faced with this choice, the protestors meekly left Kerr Hall and meandered over to Kresge Town Hall, a campus meeting place where students have been "hanging out" for several days. Police did muscle up on a group of about 30 protesters sitting in front of the doors to Kerr Hall, “forcibly” moving them from their location. At present, the students say that they have no plans to occupy another building, which is sad. They insist that they will continue to push the administration to implement their earlier demands, including asking that the campus be a "safe space" for undocumented students who fear detainment from immigration officials and assuring that no more school employees will be laid off. I sincerely hope that the outrage over the tuition hikes and budget cuts doesn’t fizzle out, because the students have a definite case here and they need to press it. No one believes that the $505 million to be raised by the tuition increase will actually help to prevent even deeper cuts than those already made due to the state’s ongoing financial crisis, as stare officials seem to believe. The protestors are right when they argue that the hike will hurt working and middle-class students. By next fall, tuition would rise to $10,302 a semester, which is far, far more than most students can afford. Plus, students who live on campus could pay up to an estimated $17,200 in additional fees, which include the annual cost of books and housing. That’s enough to piss off any non-wealthy student, especially when the January increase of about 15 percent is more than double the average public university tuition hike last year and two-and-a-half times the national average of a 6.5 percent increase at four-year colleges and universities. Protest on, California university students, protest on…………

- Three very different Thanksgiving dinners marked tonight’s episode of Heroes. The most intense of the three took place at the Sullivan Bros. carnival, where Samuel Sullivan and his merry band of freaks gathered to celebrate. Not everyone was in a celebratory mood, especially not Hiro Nakamura. With Samuel still refusing to tell him where and when in time he banished Hiro’s beloved lady friend Charlie to, Hiro is torn on what to do. He can’t harm Samuel or upset him because then he may never find out where Charlie is. Lydia, the Tattooed Woman, and Edgar, the super-speed, knife-wielding maniac, see Hiro’s dissent and ask him what’s amiss. He tells them and they decide to exploit his emotional state. Lydia invites Hiro to her living area and tries to charm him into helping her. She promises that she can use her power to help him, but she needs him to take her back in time eight weeks ago to the night when Samuel’s brother Joseph was murdered. Hiro agrees and they travel back to the carnival eight weeks in the past, where they see the scene that unfolds after Mohinder Suresh’s visit to Joseph. Samuel, who has overheard the entire talk, confronts Joseph and the two walk to a meadow outside the carnival grounds to talk. Lydia and Hiro follow and watch Samuel berate Joseph from hiding the secret of his true power from him. Joseph explains that he did it to protect Samuel and the world from the all-powerful menace he could become, but Samuel won't hear of it. He demands to see the film that Mohinder spoke of, but when Joseph admits he told Mohinder to burn it, an enraged Samuel uses his power to levitate a stone and send it hurtling through the air, right through Joseph’s throat. The blow kills Joseph almost instantly, but he lives long enough for Samuel to hold his dying brother in his arms. Just then, Samuel hears Hiro and Lydia in the bushes nearby and goes to find the source of the sound. Hiro tries to teleport away but fails initially. He succeeds just in time to escape before being found by Samuel, taking he and Lydia back to the present, where the carnival’s Thanksgiving dinner is taking place. Lydia and Hiro share the truth of Joseph’s murder with Edgar and plan to reveal the truth to the rest of the “family” at dinner. However, Hiro has second thoughts because upsetting Samuel might mean that he will never see Charlie again. Samuel has plans of his own and tells the group that they have a traitor among them, the person who murdered Joseph. Edgar stands up and calls him a fraud, but when he cites Hiro’s trip to the past as his evidence for htat claim and Hiro won't back him up, Samuel presses the attack against Edgar. He accuses Edgar of being the one who killed Joseph and attempts to take him out by levitating stones and sending them crashing into Edgar from behind, but Hiro stops time and freezes everyone but himself and Edgar. Hiro advises Edgar to flee, saying that the time for revenge against Samuel will come – just not now. Samuel soon realizes what Hiro has done, but that only emboldens Hiro to stand up to him. He threatens to leave unless Samuel tells him where and when Charlie is, but Samuel won’t cave. Instead, he summons one of his “family” members, the dreadlocked man who operates the hall of mirrors, to jump Hiro from behind and do some sort of mind-altering with his own power. Samuel expects this to somehow wipe Hiro’s memory or otherwise prevent him from leaving, but just the opposite happens. Hiro mumbles some bizarre Star Trek­-related lingo and teleports away to points unknown. The unknown also rules the day at the Petrelli family Thanksgiving dinner at Peter’s apartment in New York. Peter, mom Angela and brother Nathan all gather for dinner but with the lingering question of whether Nathan is really himself or just his memories forced into Sylar’s body hangs over the proceedings. Angela insists on enjoying a nice holiday meal and promises to walk out and never talk to her sons again if they don’t comply. Peter and Nathan insist on the truth and somewhere between turkey and pie, they hear the story of Matt Parkman force-feeding Nathan’s memories into Sylar’s body last season. Within moments, Nathan grabs a knife off the table as Angela begins to pick it up and cryptically implies that Sylar is still somewhere inside his body. As Peter and Angela look on in horror, Nathan is engulfed in a storm of lightning and electricity and when the fireworks end, he gets up off the ground and has turned back into Sylar. Sylar proceeds to hold his two “guests” captive with his powers of telepathy while wolfing down plenty of Thanksgiving grub. He then looks to make good on his previous vow to kill Angela by his patented M.O. of slicing her head open with his telepathic finger of death, but somehow a part of Nathan is still inside his body and prevents him from finishing the deed. Peter and Angela plead with Nathan to fight back and it works, with Sylar’s body morphing back into Nathan. He then rushes from the apartment, headed for an unknown destination. Peter vows to find him (and does, judging by next week’s preview), somehow get his brother back and if that’s not possible, to exact revenge on Sylar. On a lighter note, the Bennet family gathers at H.R.G.’s D.C.-area apartment for Thanksgiving dinner with a couple of added guests. Noah Bennet, a.k.a. H.R.G., finds out that ex-wife Sandra is bringing her new boyfriend Doug, an über-annoying tool who is also a dog breeder. In response, H.R.G. tracks down and invites former Company co-worker Lauren (with whom he had a brief affair once that was never revealed to anyone) to dinner. He also talks Claire into coming and everyone shows up for a nice meal that is quickly derailed when Claire confesses that she doesn’t have much to be thankful for and is considering dropping out of school. Both of her parents argue vehemently against this idea, even after Claire admits that she feels like a freak who doesn’t fit in at college. That inspires Doug to chime in even though he has no idea what he’s talking about, which then prompts Claire to take a knife, slice her arm open and show off her power to heal instantly in order to prove what an idiot Doug is. He faints on the spot, giving H.R.G. and Claire a few moments alone to chat while Sandra and Lauren tend to Doug. H.R.G. shows Claire the litany of information he’s been collecting on Samuel Sullivan, including the compass that Samuel sent Edgar to take from him (a compass that we learned Joseph sent to H.R.G. so he could find the carnival and take Samuel into custody). He also unveils a nice surprise for Claire – her former roommate Gretchen, who moved out when life with Claire become too stressful to handle. Gretchen now admits she’d consider moving back in together and that she misses hanging out. The rest of dinner goes off without a hitch, but when Claire and Gretchen depart in Gretchen’s car, Claire reveals that she’s stolen H.R.G.’s compass and with their two-day break from school, she wants to use it to find the Sullivan Bros. carnival (which, one again judging by next week’s preview, she does). So that’s all for this week, until next time………

Stealing fortune cookie secrets, good news for Smallville fans and the WNBA continues its downward spiral

- In the food world, one thing you most definitely do NOT do is attempt to steal someone’s secret noodle and fortune cookie recipes. Everyone knows this, year Illinois-based Baily International has apparently elected to ignore this rule and (allegedly) thieve the classified fortune cookie and noodle recipes of Southern Noodle Company of Houston. Owner Andy Hou isn't taking the alleged theft lying down, as he has filed a lawsuit against Baily International. Southern Noodle's lawsuit against Baily International claims that Baily offered to buy his companay and paid $50,000 earnest money. In exchange Hou provided access to his facility and books, but he claims they pulled out of the deal and ran off with his records. In other words, he’s claiming that the entire deal was nothing more than a scam to steal his recipes. Attorney Anthony Farah is representing Hou in the case and he is painting a bleak picture of what could happen to Southern Noodle if justice is not served. “The damage could be significant," said Farah. Court documents say the "defendants concocted this scheme to steal from plaintiffs a very special noodle recipe" and that "defendants' agents photographed plaintiffs' manufacturing process and stole the recipe from plaintiffs." Hou claims that his top-secret (aren’t they all?) recipes are missing, along with his customer files. He is alleging that Baily International representatives entered his factory and took pictures of his operation when he wasn’t there and says he has surveillance footage to prove it. "Not everybody had and now everybody may have it because of the nefarious, alleged acts of this company," said Farah of the stolen information. Hou is seeking financial damages, claiming conspiracy and misappropriation of trade secrets. As you’d expect from a major corporation, Baily International is hiding behind its corporate curtain of secrecy and refusing comment while its lawyers do their thing. Here’s hoping that the little guy, Andy Hou, gets justice when all is said and done………

- Google is not only shooting for the top of the Internet browser market with its new Chrome browser, it’s aiming to take over the netbook market as well. On Friday, Google unveiled additional details of Chrome OS, a lightweight, browser-based operating system for netbooks. The focus is on speed and the Chrome OS promises nearly instant boot times of about 7 seconds for users to login to their computers. "We want Google Chrome OS to be blazingly fast ... to boot up like a TV," said Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management for Google. The first notebooks equipped with Chrome OS will be available last in 2010, but in the meantime it will not be available as a download to run and install. Google is keeping a tight rein on Chrome and will only ship it on specific hardware from manufacturers Google has partnered with. In other words, if you want Chrome OS, you’ll have to purchase an official Chrome OS device – well, until someone hacks it and finds a way to make it available by other means. So far, no partnerships with computer manufacturers have been announced, but Google stated that whoever produces the netbooks will have to meet specifications including full-size keyboards, large trackpads and large displays. One interesting feature of the Chrome OS netbooks is that they will not have traditional hard disk drives -- they will rely on non-volatile flash memory and Internet-based storage for saving all of your data. The first part of that sounds great, but I have never been a big fan of online data storage. No matter how secure a provider claims the data is, there is still a higher chance of my data being hacked if it’s stored online than there is on an external hard drive at my home. But it would be ignorant to overlook the growing popularity of cloud computing, which is what Chrome OS will rely on. Applications will all be web-based, so users won't have to worry about installing applications or updating their software. All data will be stored in their cloud and Google vows to monitor code to prevent malicious activity in Chrome OS web apps. "Chrome OS is a totally rethought computer that will let you focus on the Internet, so you can stop worrying about your computer," according to a Google promotional video. To give you a chance to experience Chrome firsthand, Google plans to release all of the operating system's code and design documents to the public. It is a Linux-based, open-source operating system centered on Google's Chrome browser and all applications will run exclusively inside the browser. How will the Chrome OS-equipped netbooks fare? That’s an interesting proposition, as netbook sales for current products are falling well below manufacturer expectations thus far. The cost for Chrome OS netbooks is expected to be about the same as current netbooks, in the range of $300 to $500. Personally I have no intention of jumping on board with any of this, as a netbook has never been a huge draw for me and I’m not overwhelmed by the concepts of the Chrome OS setup……….

- Crap. You’ll have to excuse me if I am absolutely heartbroken right now because……well, because…..okay, okay, let’s just get it over with. Yet another WNBA franchise has folded, with the legendary Sacramento Monarchs becoming the latest casualty of women’s professional basketball. Monarchs general manager/coach John Whisenant broke the news to local media in Sacramento, ending the run of a team that I am told won the 2005 WNBA championship. The Monarchs, as with all WNBA franchises, were run by an NBA team that served the purpose of actually making money and supporting the charity case that was their corresponding WNBA franchise. NBA commissioner David Stern has insisted on perpetuating this farce for a decade under the auspices of supporting women and girls in sports, which is a good concept. However, that’s not enough for myself or other fans of basketball that’s actually good to overlook the crap-tacular product the WNBA consistently put on the floor. Supporters like to argue that the women’s game is more fundamentally sound and interesting, but that’s just the lie they like to tell themselves to make their forced viewing of WNBA basketball more bearable. Look at the bottom line: The Monarchs and Houston Comets have both ceased operations in the past year for purely financial reasons. The Detroit Shock left town and moved to Tulsa in a futile attempt to generate interest for the team in a new market, while the Indiana Fever are up for sale and could probably be had for less than the cost of a new Chevy Cobalt. The Monarchs were owned by brothers Joe and Gavin Maloof, who also own the Palms Hotel and Casino in las Vegas and the NBA’s Sacramento Kings. Their primary focus is (as it should be) on the Kings, who aren’t exactly bringing in overflowing profits so far this season. Playing to a whole lot of empty seats, the Kings are among several NBA teams struggling to sell tickets and bring in fans. With thaty reality facing them, the Maloofs clearly felt that the added burden of a WNBA team on their backs wasn’t something they wanted or needed. The WNBA would like everyone to believe that there are investors from the Bay Area looking to purchase the team, but those claims seem dubious at best. "Everyone in this business environment ... you have to do what has to be done," Joe Maloof. “Our focus is to turn the Kings around, and to do that, we have to put all our efforts and good salespeople on the Kings.” Don’t worry, Joe; no one blames you. In fact, we all salute your incredible resolve for hanging on to a money pit like the Monarchs for so long. Go forward proudly and know that no one harbors any ill will toward you and your brother for this brilliant, brilliant business decision………

- Ever since the apparent death of Brian Austin Green's Metallo character earlier this season on Smallville, speculation on a possible return has been buzzing. Green first appeared in the Season 9 premiere as Metallo's alter ego, journalist John Corbin. He lasted all of one week, dying in the second episode of the season after a battle with Clark Kent in which he accidentally ripped out his own Kryptonite-infused heart while trying to kill the Man of Steel. Perhaps portending a return for Metallo, Dr. Emil (Alessandro Juliani) remarked in that episode that Corbin had become more machine than man, so the chances for his survival might be good. Dr. Emil’s words have ultimately proved prophetic and Green will make his return in episode 18, which is scheduled to air in the spring. As noted in Friday’s Smallville recap, the show is on holiday hiatus until Jan. 22 (you still suck for that, CW!), so the eighteenth episode of the season is actually a bit further away than it might otherwise seem. Still, it has been a very good season up to this point, even without the über-hot, amazing Kristin Kreuk around to brighten up our TV screens and our lives as Lana Lang. Seeing elements and aspects of the Superman mythology gradually woven into the Smallville fabric has been a lot of fun and adding talented actors like Green to the mix for a few episodes definitely can’t hurt………

- Woo hoo! It’s “embarrassing family member of a U.S. senator” time and I could not be more pumped. Let’s get started with Alexandra Forbes Kerry, the older of Sen. John Kerry's two daughters, who was arrested for suspicion of DUI in Hollywood Thursday. She was pulled over for a traffic violation about 12:40 a.m., at which time officers somehow deduced that she was somewhat impaired. Kerry refused to take Breathalyzer test at the scene and it wasn’t until later in the night that a test could be administered. That test showed a level of 0.06, under the legal limit of 0.08. "She was arrested for driving under the influence," said Officer Sara Faden, who added that Kerry was released on $5,000 bail. Kerry was initially pulled over for an expired registration and was released after the results of a Breathalyzer test at the police station were under the legal limit. It appears the film producer and director has dodged a major bullet here, but merely being linked with the letters DUI in the media should be a solid black eye for Sen. Kerry. However, it’s not likely to be quite as embarrassing as things are for Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., whose wife got all liquored up and decided that driving into a few parked cars would be a good way to show just how capable of driving under the influence she is. Police say an officer stopped 76-year-old Charlene Lugar Wednesday evening at a McLean intersection after noticing damage to her car and seeing smoke pouring from the hood. Hmm…..sounds curious, tell me more. An officer approached the vehicle and questioned Lugar, who showed obvious signs of intoxication. A little thorough police work led to the discovery of a damaged, unattended parked car about two miles away from the traffic stop. Fairfax County police determined that Lugar struck the vehicle but was far too hammered to realize what she had done. She’s been charged with drunken driving and hit-and-run, both of which are misdemeanors. In a statement, Sen. Lugar said that he and his wife are "deeply sorry and embarrassed that this accident has occurred." I’d say so, senator. But you might be a bit more embarrassed than your wife because a) you’re the public figure and it’s your name that will be dragged into the mud more for this one and b) she’s probably still a tad hung over and may not realize exactly what she’s done. I’m offended personally because what the heck did that parked car ever do to Charlene Lugar? It was just sitting their on the side of the street, minding its own business and not expecting some molared-up old senator’s wife to come crashing into it. Here’s hoping the judge sticks it to Charlene Lugar at her Jan. 8 trial is scheduled in Fairfax County General District Court……………

Moving day for some of my fave TV shows, college football thoughts on rivalry weekend and it's Ponzi scheme time, yay!

- It’s moving day in the television world, with two of my favorite shows making the leap to new time slots. Neither Lost nor Chuck has kicked off its new season yet, but both shows are making news this week as their respective season premiere dates are announced, along with new nights for both. As the buzz for its sixth and final season ramps up, Lost will be leaping through time from Wednesday to Tuesday nights. The two-hour premiere is scheduled for Feb. 2, at 9/8c after holding down a Wednesday night slot for ABC last season. During Season 4, the show aired on Thursday nights, so moving to a new night is in fact, nothing new for the castaways of the mysterious, no-name island in the Pacific. In announcing the premiere date and schedule change, ABC also revealed the regular cast members for Season 6, including Naveen Andrews, Nestor Carbonell, Emile de Ravin, Michael Emerson, Jeff Fahey, Matthew Fox, Jorge Garcia, Josh Holloway, Daniel Dae Kim, Yunjin Kim, Ken Leung, Evangeline Lilly, Terry O'Quinn and Zuleikha Robinson. Lost fans might be wondering why Elizabeth Mitchell is missing from the list, but she has been flying to Hawaii to shoot guest stints for the show while holding down her primary gig on the network’s new drama V. As they await the new season, fans can keep up with the show at ABC.com/lost by watching webisodes exploring background and back stories from the show. The final webisode, Mysteries of the Universe: The Dharma Initiative, attempts to uncover what's going on with the secret organization. As for Chuck, everyone’s favorite dork spy will be coming back sooner than expected: Sunday, Jan. 10, at 9/8c with back-to-back episodes. Following its debut, the show will return to Monday nights at 8/9c beginning Jan. 11. Seeing where Chuck, the show’s title character, is after being downloaded with a new supercomputer into his brain in last season’s finale will definitely be interesting. Oh, and there is also the guest-starring rule for the über-hot Kristin Kreuk to look forward to, along with guest spots from Angie Harmon, Brandon Routh, Robert Patrick, Armand Assante, Steve Austin and Vinne Jones. Once Chuck is back on the schedule, Heroes will return to its time slot from last season at 9/8c, with a two-hour episode on Jan. 4 marking its last night in the 8/7c slot. So there’s plenty to look forward to for fans of these two great shows, even if most of the other series on both networks are absolute crap right now………

- Nothing makes your political point more emphatically than destroying the studios of the nearest TV station. Storming the building and ransacking it is a profound way of declaring that you are angry, you are dangerous and you are powerful enough to attack a group of people with no military training, no advance warning of an attack and no means to defend themselves against such an attack. As such, big ups to the band of right-wing activists who ransacked an Indian television station in Mumbai on Friday. The attackers called the assault was an act of retaliation against the channel's "bias" against the veteran leader of their party. Observers labeled the attack on the IBN Lokmat as a result of militant politics in Maharashtra state, home to Mumbai. Only seven people have been arrested so far in conjunction with the attack, but 15 to 20 people more are expected to be taken into custody, said Rajkumar Vhatkar, a deputy commissioner of police in the city. They, along with those already apprehended, will be charged with assault, rioting and criminal trespass, among other counts. All of the suspects are members of the regional Shiv Sena party, which fights federal and state elections. The part has already confirmed that they are members, nor are they backing down from the attack. "We are not denying it. They were angry," said Sanjay Raut, a federal lawmaker from Shiv Sena. The incident seems to stem from a perceived insult by the TV station against the Shiv Sena party head, Bal Thackeray, a temperamental Maharashtrian leader. Don’t expect the attacks to abate any time soon, as they have been a staple of the Indian political scene for years and groups like Shiv Sena have targeted Bollywood films, Valentine's Day celebrations, non-Maharashtrians, and non-Hindus as means to make their point. I guess you could give this particular group of attackers credit for not killing or seriously injuring anyone during their mini-assault, I guess…….

- Overall, this was not a good Saturday for college football. That would be in large part because the two supposed elite SEC teams, the piece of sh*t cowards at Florida and Alabama, filled voids in their respective schedules with Div. 1-AA teams that didn’t belong on the same stadium. Rather than play a quality non-conference foe, Urban Meyer and confirmed liar Nick Saban pu**ied out and scheduled games against Florida Atlantic and Chattanooga, respectively. This is a whole other tangent, but my contention continues to be that NO Div. 1-A team should be allowed to play a Div. 1-AA team ever, for any reason. So rather than quality games against opponents capable of keeping it within four touchdowns, we were treated to 62-3 (Florida) and 45-0 (Alabama) curb-stompings. Personally, I’d deduct one win from each team’s record for such pathetic, weak scheduling. At the least, disqualify all players from Florida and Alabama from the Heisman race for this indefensible scheduling. Third-ranked Texas may have issued a beatdown of their own, but at least their rout was mandated by the Big 12 conference, which sent a troubled Kansas team to Austin for a 51-20 ass-kicking that should definitely make life easier for obese coach Mark Mangino. Easily the most impressive win by a top-five team was No. 4 TCU, which traveled to Laramie and pummeled a 5-5 Wyoming team, holding the Cowboys to less than 200 yards of total offense and allowing no offensive touchdowns. The Horned Frogs are showing week by week that they belong among the nation’s elite and I would absolutely love to see them take down the schedule pu**ies at Florida or Alabama in the BCS championship game. This was also rivalry weekend, meaning that it was time for Ohio State to once again grind Michigan into a hapless pile of dust. The final score was 21-10, with the outcome fueled by five freaking UM turnovers, all by freshman quarterback Tate Forcier. The loss drops Michigan to 5-7 on the season, eliminating them from bowl contention, handing coach Rich-er Fraud-riguez back-to-back losing season to start his tenure with the Wolverines, the first coach to accomplish that feat. OSU has now beaten Michigan six straight times, which is more than a little embarrassing for the maize and blue. Speaking of embarrassing….um, what the hell was that, Notre Dame? With coach Charlie Weis’ job on the line, the Irish were anything but Fighting and they were beaten at home in double-overtime by a Connecticut team that entered the game under the .500 mark and having not won in a month. The 33-30 defeat should put the final bullet in the head of Weis’ career at ND, paving the way for a coach who might actually have a clue how to turn the Irish into an elite program once again. A rivalry game that won't get a ton of attention because it’s a Div. 1-AA game is Harvard-Yale, i.e. The Game. Being played for the 127th time, the contest was a true classic at the Yale Bowl. The smart kids from Yale dominated the smart kids from Harvard for three-and-a-half quarters, building a 10-0 lead with a solid running game and a suffocating defense. However, Harvard hung tough and after a 41-yard touchdown pass from Collier Winters to Matt Luft with 6:46 left in the game, the Crimson climbed right back into the game. Yale basically handed them the win with just over three minutes left in the game. Facing a 4th and 22 at their own 25, the Bulldogs inexplicably elected to run a fake punt rather than an actual one. Predictably, the fake punt failed, gaining only 15 yards and handing the ball to Harvard at the Yale 40 with 3:14 left. From there, it took three plays for the Crimson to reach the end zone, accomplished on a 32-yard Winters-to-Chris Lorditch TD pass. Final score: Harvard 14, Yale 10 and a bunch of dejected Yalies left to drown their sorrows in cheap bear Saturday night. Joining them in their misery were the smart kids at Stanford, who saw their beloved Cardinal drop a 34-28 heartbreaker to archrival California despite four more touchdown runs from should-be Heisman Trophy winner Toby Gerheart. Stanford had a legit chance to win, but redshirt freshman quarterback Andrew Luck tossed a lethal interception with just over a minute remaining in the game to seal Stanford’s fate. I guess, looking back, it wasn’t that bad a day of football, thanks entirely to the non-elite and even non-D-1 teams who played exciting rivalry games and made me remember why I love college football. Thanks for that, guys……..

- It’s Ponzi scheme time, y’all! My general rule is that those not smart enough to avoid Ponzi schemes deserve to lose whatever they lose to the proprietors of these ridiculous, unbelievable scams. After weighing the following situation carefully, I’m going to uphold that rule here. Let’s meet Bill Chaucer of Ponchatoula, La., a financial investor who was arrested Thursday and charged him with 80 felony counts. The State Attorney General's Office Chaucer ran a Ponzi scheme and stole more than $11 million dollars from more than 200 investors. Most of the victims reside in Tangipahoa Parish, but others come from St. Tammany, New Orleans and Baton Rouge. "Chaucer had been in business for a number of years, without any complaints and something happened, where he was diverting this money he was raising, and this was, we believe, nothing more than a Ponzi scheme operated in the context of a finance business," Tangipahoa District Attorney Scott Perrilloux said. Perrilloux reiterated that Chaucer's investment business operated legally for years, then turned illegal. For those unfamiliar with Ponzi schemes, they basically lure investors in with the promise of ridiculously high returns, deliver those returns for an extremely temporary period of time (a month or so), long enough to sucker them in. The problem is that the profits are not really profits, but rather payments made from the money invested by those lured into the scam after the investor who is receiving payment. Chaucer used his profits from the scam to finance an extravagant lifestyle, including Mardi Gras krewe memberships, plastic surgery, jewelry and for his wife’s participation in senior beauty pageants. "Let me just put it to you this way," said Tangipahoa attorney Sam Dileo, "I've been to lots of parties in my life, even a party at the White House or two occasionally, I've never seen parties like this. Very expensive champagne, very expensive liquor. Everything monogrammed. Gifts when you went in, gifts when you went out." Hopefully that lifestyle was worth it, because Chaucer is now charged with 60 counts related to securities, which include unregistered sales and making misrepresentations, and 20 counts of felony theft. Those charges could result in more than 500 years in prison if Chaucer is convicted, albeit in a federal prison where he likely would not be incarcerated with what you’d consider hardcore criminals. The state, led by the Attorney General's Public Corruption Unit, will try to find and seize Chaucer's assets, but it is believed that he may not have much left at this point. "Unfortunately, in this case, as in a lot of the other cases the answer that you have at the end of the day is not a very happy, not a very happy ending," AGCPU director David Caldwell said. No, but as I said at the top, anyone dumb enough to be lured in by the absurd promises of a Ponzi scheme doesn’t really deserve a happy ending anyhow………

- Way to show your true colors, soccer fan. Nothing is more ingrained in the nature of soccer fans worldwide than acting like drunken, classless a-holes before, during and after matches, whether they are “friendlies” with other countries, league championship games or major international showdowns. Big ups to hundreds of angry soccer hooligans in Egypt who brawled with police near the Algerian Embassy in Cairo early Friday. The clashes resulted from tensions over Algeria's victory over Egypt in a World Cup qualifier soccer match and earlier fights between soccer fans in the North African countries. This was a fairly kick-ass riot, even by soccer standards. An estimated 39 security forces were injured in the riot and cars and stores were damaged in Zamalek, an island in Cairo on the Nile River. In the aftermath, officials flooded the area with truckloads of riot police and more than 1,000 security forces. Best of all, the outbreak of brawls between Egyptian and Algerian soccer fans also has led to a diplomatic row between the two North African countries, with Egypt recalling its ambassador to Algiers on Thursday. There is nothing more awesome than a bunch of drunk, idiotic soccer fans getting so out of control over a stupid game that they cause a major international incident. The recall of the Egyptian envoy to Algeria was done "for consultations," according to Husam Zaki, a spokesman for Egypt's Foreign Ministry. It came after an incident Thursday in which Algeria refused to allow an Egyptian plane to land. The aircraft was dispatched to evacuate Egyptian citizens from Algiers, where press reports said Egyptians have been harassed by Algerian fans. To kick things up another notch, the Algerian government decked Egyptian telecommunications giant Orascom with a nearly $600 million bill for alleged back taxes this week. All of this because Egyptian fans stoned the Algerian team's bus upon its arrival in Cairo and injured several players, are you freaking kidding me? Look, I know you all are a little too pumped up about the chance to qualify for the 2010 World Cup, but even for soccer fans this is a little ridiculous. Fights broke out after the Egyptian team's 2-0 victory in Saturday's match, then escalated even more following a Wednesday night playoff, which Algeria won 1-0. Thanks for showing us that while many things in this world are in a constant state of change, you, soccer fan, are, were and always will be totally ridiculous………

Your last Smallville recap for a while, most Americans view the swine flu like I do and Riot Watch! in Cali

- Shocker, shocker. Seems that most Americans, like yours truly, have no interest in getting the H1N1 flu vaccine. That’s according to a new poll released Wednesday wherein more than half of all adult Americans say they don't want to get vaccinated. The poll reveals that 55 percent of adults don't want to get the swine flu vaccine and don't plan to get a shot. A scant 7 percent have actually been inoculated for H1N1, so clearly the majority of adults aren’t that concerned about what is supposed to be a pandemic in the making. Among those who do not plan to be vaccinated, the belief that the vaccine has dangerous side effects is a major reason, according to health experts. That’s in spite of the fact that officials of the National Institutes of Health say they've seen no serious side effects in clinical trials and that study subjects who have been immunized have generated a good response. Others are not getting the vaccine because they do not fall into a high-risk group that has been targeted as a priority for immunization. These groups include: pregnant women; caregivers and household contacts of children younger than 6 months; everyone between the ages of 6 months and 24 years; and people ages 25 to 64 with existing health problems. Personally, I’m not getting vaccinated or looking to do so because I think this whole H1N1 scare is way, way overblown and people are panicking for no good reason. Ours is far too much of a fear-driven culture and I’m not about to capitulate to that sort of pressure and herd mentality. Wash your hands, abstain from your normal practice of licking/making out with rails, door handles and oft-used surfaces in public places and don’t allow people to cough directly on you and you’ll be fine. Heck, even if you are a person who has actively sought the vaccine, odds are that you haven’t been able to get it. If you don’t fall into one of the aforementioned high-priority groups, you are placed at the back end of the line and told to wait your turn. For the most part, the panicky segments of society are undoubtedly old people, who overreact to everything, are scared of everything and feel like everything that is reported will actually happen. The H1N1 virus is not going to be what takes you down, old timers, so relax and go about your normal routine……….

- Oh, how Lane Kiffin must be smiling right now. When Kiffin was fired last year as coach of the perpetually dysfunctional Oakland Raiders, possibly alive Raiders owner Al Davis conducted a bizarr-o press conference in which he assailed Kiffin’s character using, among other things, an overhead projector from 1974. During that presser, one of Davis’ main points was that Kiffin did not like quarterback JaMarcus Russell as a player and did not want to draft him. “JaMarcus is a great player. Get over it,” Davis chided Kiffin, who wasn’t in attendance. Now that Kiffin is the head coach at the University of Tennessee and has shown substantial progress in turning around the faltering UT program, he has not be loving the fact that on Wednesday, the Raiders benched Russell, the former No. 1 overall pick, and handed the starting job to journeyman Bruce Gradkowski for the foreseeable future. Coach Tom Cable, who took over after Kiffin was fired, had already jerked Russell from two of the last three games and his sparkling stat line of two touchdowns against nine interceptions (with five fumbles lost) doesn’t exactly argue Russell’s case to start very well. Asked if the QB switch was a short-term move, the assistant-coach-assaulting Cable said plainly that it was not. "I don't want to be like that," he said. "This is where we're headed and what we're going to do. He'll take this team and go with it." Following the decision, Russell was absent from the locker room during the media access period and was not available for comment. Honestly, I don’t care to hear from Russell anyhow. What of substance is he going to say? That he’s disappointed to lose his job but that he will do everything possible to help the team no matter what his role? The guy I want to hear from is the Crypt Keeper himself, Al Davis. Don your best leather jumpsuit, break out your overhead projector and defend your boy now, Al. But you can't do that, can you? Because you finally see what we have all seen for a long time now, namely that JaMarcus is not a great player and that it is you, not Lane Kiffin, who needs to “get over it.” Great players are not 40 pounds overweight, lazy in the weight room, disinterested in the film room and regressing as NFL players in their third season. So far, all that we’ve heard about Davis in regards to this decision is that Cable stated that Davis gave him the autonomy to make the decision on his own and supported the move. "As we all know, it's important to include him in everything so he knows what's going on with this football team," Cable said. Oh, he knows. He knows that he’s paid more than $31 million to an overweight, lazy and unmotivated slug who held out for weeks prior to his rookie season, has completed just 46.8 percent of his passes this season and is the primary reason why the Raiders’ offense is among the NFL’s worst. Still, Cable insists that he’s not giving up on Russell as an NFL quarterback. "This is in no way giving up on the guy," Cable said. "This is just trying to jump-start this team and really break it down and make a decision based on what gives us the best chance to win." Of course, all of this is not to say that Russell is Oakland’s only major problem. No, the team also blew their top pick in the 2009 draft, selecting receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey with the seventh pick overall despite the fact that he was considered the fourth or fifth-best receiver in the draft and a second-round pick at best. Heyward-Bey has caught six passes this season – total – for 96 yards. He drops nearly every pass thrown his way and is the perfect compliment to a QB bust like Russell. Perhaps when the Raiders cut Russell after this season, they can toss Heyward-Bey on the garbage heap along with him. Before we conclude, how about one final stat to illustrate Russell’s incompetence: He has completed just 2 of 34 passes that have gone more than 20 yards downfield for 85 yards, one touchdown and five interceptions. Hard to see how you give up on a guy like that…………

- The future was dark on tonight’s Smallville – well, actually it was red. At the end of last week’s episode, Lois slipped into a coma after kissing Clark and seeing one of her recurring visions of the future. This episode began with Clark having rushed her to the hospital and Oliver Queen flying in the three best neurologists in the country to help. Those efforts went for naught when Lois suddenly went missing from the hospital. Clark immediately suspected Chloe because she a) is Lois’ cousin and b) had been prying into Lois’ medical records along with her friend, Dr. Emil. Clark goes directly to the source and wastes no time accusing Chloe, who is offended but is actually able to point Clark in the right direction, namely, the direction of Tess Mercer. Tess has kidnapped Lois and taken to (where else) the abandoned Bell Reeve sanitarium, where she has set up a bizarre machine perfected by scientists that allows the user to pry into the mind of a subject and see their thoughts and memories. With the help of her tech guru, Stuart Campbell, Tess hooks Lois up to the machine in an attempt to learn what Lois saw during the three weeks she disappeared and traveled to the future following last season’s finale. The memories start up almost instantly, with Lois remembering the fight with Tess that led to her grabbing the Legion ring that Clark had been given and was keeping in his desk at the Daily Planet. She leapt forward in time a year, ending up in a bizarro future with a red sun and post-apocalyptic Metropolis in which the streets are empty, littered with abandoned vehicles and the bright red sun hovers in the sky. Almost immediately, Lois is confronted by a super-speeding Kandorian who demands to know who she is and why she’s in the restricted zone. Lois won't explain herself and is obviously afraid, but the Kandorian quickly realizes that she’s human and no real threat. Lois warns him that the Blur will stop him from whatever he’s up to, but the Kandorian retorts that under the red sun, the Blur has no powers. He points to the black shirt and coat worn by the Blur, seen hanging from a nearby pole as a monument to his demise. Lois also sees the skyline dominated by two massive solar towers, the very towers Tess Mercer unveiled plans to build two episodes ago. From there, Lois is taken to some sort of internment camp for humans that has been set up at the Kent farm, of all places. Humans are treated miserably and not given enough to eat, but Lois manages to find a friendly face: Clark. They embrace, but their reunion is short-lived. After Clark dsiscovers that Lois has the Legion ring, Aaliyah, the Kandorian assassin who we know ultimately followed Lois back from the future and tried to kill her earlier this season, and a fellow guard at the camp whisk Lois away to speak to General Zod. He’s set up shop at the Luthor Mansion, now adorned with the latest in Kandorian and Zod paraphernalia, including a slew of nice red-and-black banners. Zod offers to set Lois free if she’s willing to rat out the person who snuck her into the restricted zone near the solar towers. She refuses and after being apprised that she was also spotted chatting with Clark at the prison camp, Zod decides that both of them will be executed immediately to send a message to anyone who would defy Zod. Prior to the execution, Zod also takes a moment to officially welcome Tess as an official member of his army and presents her with her own Kandorian dog tags. Lois rails against her for selling out the human race, but Tess explains that she was merely working with Zod in an attempt to save the Earth from human destruction. The executions are about to go down with a band of bow-and-arrow-wielding, black-clad assassins come bursting through the roof and put a halt to the proceedings with kryptonite-laced arrows and knives. They manage to drive off Zod and his men, but in the process Tess is shot with an arrow and killed. The assassins turn out to be led by Oliver and Chloe, whom Clark hasn’t seen in months. The foursome of Clark, Lois, Oliver and Chloe manages to escape and travel to the secret, back-alley hideout where Oliver, Chloe and the other members of their resistance group have been operating. While at the hideout, Clark also takes a moment to clean up from his beating at the hands of Zod and while he washes his face, Lois walks in and they have a heart-to-heart that ends with them having sex, fulfilling part of Lois’ flash-forward memories we’ve seen this season. Later on, Clark, Chloe and Oliver debate what their next move should be. While they argue, Lois overhears the news that for the past few months, Clark has been AWOL and ended up trying to fight Zod on his own. He and Chloe aren’t even friends anymore and don’t trust each other. In spite of that, they must work together. Oliver and Chloe explain that the Kandorians derive their power from the solar towers, which convert the sun’s rays into a different composition, then beam them up to LuthorCorp satellites, which send them back to the sun and turn it red, which in turn gives them their power while robbing Clark of his. They must disable the solar towers to stop the Kandorians, which is why the area around them is a restricted zone. Chloe’s idea is to sneak back to Watchtower, which she powered down and put into hibernation so the Kandorians wouldn’t find it, and user her super-hacker skills to infect the towers and satellites with a virus that will turn the sun back to its normal yellow color, thus flipping the power balance back to Clark. When Lois inquires as to why turning the sun back to normal would make Clark the ideal person to take down Zod and his posse, all Clark will tell her is that he and Zod “have a history.” The second part of the plan is to steal the Legion ring back from Zod, who took it from Lois, and to send her back to the past with knowledge of what is happening in the future so it can be stopped. First, all four of them must sneak into Watchtower, which proves to be fairly easy. Once there, Chloe boots up her system, breaks down the towers’ firewall and infects them with the virus. Having completed part one, it’s now up to Clark to find Zod and take back the ring. While he works on that, Lois and Chloe attempt to make a getaway from Watchtower but are spotted and stopped by Aaliyah. She wastes no time in putting a sword right through Chloe’s stomach, killing her on the spot and fulfilling another part of Lois’ visions. Oliver shows up to ward off Aaliyah with some kryptonite-tipped arrows and he tells Lois that the best way for her to help Chloe is by getting the Legion ring back, going back to the past and preventing this very future in which her cousin dies. Lois agrees and goes back to work, finding Clark as Zod drags him through the streets of Metropolis with the intent of finishing the execution he began earlier. Lois tries to intervene by slipping Clark a kryptonite-covered knife, but Zod stops him from using is and proceeds to toss Clark around some more before grabbing Lois and preparing to take her out as well. At that exact moment, the virus Chloe infected the towers with accomplishes its purpose and the sun returns to its normal state. Clark powers back up, Zod loses his powers and the tables turn. Clark accosts Zod, takes back the ring and tells him that his reign is over. But before Clark can turn the ring over to Lois to return to the past, Zod stuns him by stabbing CK with the kryptonite-laden knife, which now works against Clark because he has his Kryptonian powers back. A wounded Clark still manages to toss Zod aside, stumble away and find Lois to give her the ring. She doesn’t want to leave him, but agrees to once he promises that they’ll see each other again. Lois puts on the ring, Aaliyah rushes grabs her as she does so and the two of them go back in time to what is actually now the past, landing on a high-speed train in Metropolis. In the present, Clark manages to find where Tess has taken Lois and goes there to save her. Before Clark can get there, Tess has Stuart hook her up to Lois on the machine so she can see the memories that Lois sees. After seeing the memories, Tess realizes that Lois did indeed travel to the future and demands that Stuart erase all of Lois’ memories from that trip. He refuses because doing so could leave Lois a human vegetable if even one mistake is made. Tess will have none of his dissent and puts a burning slug in Stuart’s back before fleeing the scene. Clark arrives, stops Tess and tries to unhook Lois from the machine, but the Kryptonite weakens him and he ends up with one of the leads from the machine stuck to him. He is then hooked up to Lois brain waves just as Tess was and he too sees Lois’ visions of the future. While he’s locked in, Dr. Emil and Chloe arrive on the scene and Emil wants to disconnect Clark, but Chloe persudes him to hold off so that Clark can see what the future is like and learn how to stop Zod. Emil relents and Clark sees the rest of the future, then snaps out of his temporary coma and returns to the land of the living. Lois is okay as well, back to work at the Planet the next day and believing that she was hospitalized for nothing more than hypoglycemia. While she was hooked up to the memory machine, Emil was able to wipe out her memories from the future and so Lois is no longer plagued by mental images of the apocalypse. She is back to normal and so Clark seizes the chance to talk about their new dating relationship. Lois worries about repeating past dating mistakes and wants to take it slow and Clark concurs. Of course, she follows that up by telling him all of the things they will do while “taking it slow,” including dancing, walks in the park and of course, a monster truck rally. From there, Clark is off to Watchtower to talk to Chloe and Oliver. They want to act on the inside info he gained from Lois’ visions of the future to take Zod out now, before he can build his solar towers and become a threat. Clark counters that when he treated Zod as an enemy the first time around, the end result was the cataclysmic future he just saw. Instead, he wants to befriend Zod and show him how great living on Earth can be. Chloe and Oliver both object, because CK wants to follow through on Jor-El’s advice to “Save Zod,” ostensibly from himself. To that end, he supped speeds to the current meeting of Zod and his troops to begin building the relationship. Zod welcomes him and demands that his troops bow before Clark. That’s where things end……and where they will stay until freaking January 22. Yes, a f***ing two-month hiatus. Way to build momentum for the season, CW. So until January, that’s your last Smallville recap……….

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! This one has been brewing for a while and it finally reached its boiling point. With the California Board of Regents voting Thursday on a measure to raise undergraduate tuition 32 percent over the next two years, students around the state have spent the past few weeks making their opposition to the tuition hike loud and clear. To cap off their weeks of protests, a group of angry students staged a sit-in Thursday in an attempt to block university officials from leaving the UCLA campus after the vote. Some 100 students locked arms as they blocked the parking decks where regents' vehicles were parked and chanted, "Hell, no, we won't go." It was flat-out awesome, especially coming on the heels of hundreds of students marching and chanting against the increase during the meeting, which took place in an administration building on the UCLA campus. Of course, the board approved the increase and this only served to piss off the agitated students even more. The students say the cuts will hurt working and middle-class students who benefit from state-funded education and of course, they are right. Officials counter that a fee increase and deep cuts in school spending are necessary because of a persistent budget crisis that has forced reductions across California's state government and of course, they are wrong. Slicing the bloated salaries of university presidents, chancellors and administrators would be a much better place to start and would raise a substantial amount of money. Heck, while we’re at it, how’s about slicing the ginormously inflated salaries paid to head football and men’s basketball coaches? But no, The Man elects to stick it to the little guy who can least afford to pay. "We're fired up. Can't take it no more," students chanted as they marched and waved signs. "Education only for the rich," one sign read. Once the vote took place, the protestors bum-rushed the parking decks in an effort to block regents' vehicles from leaving. There to meet them were the perpetual law-enforcement joke that is campus police and California Highway Patrol officers in riot gear. One board member who wasn’t able to sneak into the parking deck without being seen had to cross paths with the livid students, who clogged his path and shouted, "Shame on you, shame on you." The approval by the University of California's Board of came a day after the regents' finance committee also approved the increase. The votes united two groups you might not expect to see protesting side by side: students and faculty members. Some professors and campus workers joined the protests, feeling the tuition-hike plan would hurt them as well. “Stop cuts in education and research," a sign carried by a teacher said. One nice story from the protest involved a political science class on the UCLA campus that was interrupted when protestors sporting picket signs burst into the room chanting, "Walk out, walk out.” Professor Mark Sawyer and his class heeded the call and joined the protest. And of course the campus police had to act like total ass clowns during the protest, including their arrests of students who used radios to let fellow students know where police were posted. All told, 14 people were arrested during the protest. Many others who couldn’t make the trip to Los Angeles for the protest joined in by setting up "tent cities" on other University of California campuses across the state. Still more protestors got involved by locking themselves inside UCLA’s Campbell Hall overnight. Now that it has been approved, the first tuition increase, which takes effect in January, will cost undergraduate students an additional $585 a semester. The second increase kicks in next fall, raising tuition another $1,344. In other words, the cost for fall semester next year will be at least $1,929 more than it was this fall and to put it bluntly, that’s ridiculous. Increasing tuition that much isn't going to help the system, it’s going to hurt it because a whole lot of students simply are not going to be able to afford to continue attending college. Thanks for screwing over the little guy, California Board of Regents. You all officially suck…………

- This is the sort of gang that you don’t want to get on the wrong side of: a gang selling FAT from dead people. And where else would you expect this sort of crew to roll but Peru? The details of the situation are still trickling in, but Peruvian authorities say they have arrested four members of a gang that specialized in selling fat obtained from dead humans. Police are investigating the disappearance of at least 60 people who may have been killed by gang members in two mountainous states in central Peru. What’s astonishing is that authorities currently have only four suspects in the case, meaning they are accusing these four individuals of offing some 60 people. It’s not clear if they killed these poor souls simply to harvest the FAT from their portly physiques, but apparently the FAT is sold in Peru and abroad and used for commercial purposes (human-fat cooking oil for those fries, anyone?). The FAT ring conspiracy was unearthed on November 3, when police arrested two of the suspects as they left a transport business with a plastic container with human fat in it. By the way, how the hell is that considered suspicious activity? Who among us doesn’t roll with a Tupperware container of human FAT at any given time? Just because these dudes were packing someone’s else’s FAT in a re-sealable container doesn’t mean you can just charge them and two of their fellow gang members with murder, Peruvian authorities. Besides, if you don’t want gang members harvesting FAT from your body or the body of a loved one after death, there’s a simple solution: don’t be FAT. I’m always here to provide practical, sensible solutions to life’s problems, so feel free to hit me up any time should you need further guidance, y’all………

Starr and McCartney team up again, Bud Selig finally makes one needed change and blowing up bridges in Colombia.....Hugo Chavez has been busy

- Quite an eclectic group of guests former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr has assembled for "Y Not," his latest solo album due out Jan. 12, 2010 on Hip-O Records/UMe. When people call something ecletic, they usually mean that it’s weird and often that it sucks and that would definitely be the case here. Among the musical luminaries Starr has assembled are pop hacks like Joss Stone and Richard Marx. He has also snagged some good artists to join him for the project, including Ben Harper, Benmont Tench of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and former Beatles bandmate Paul McCartney. Starr and McCartney will team up for a duet on the album, on which Starr is handling the production duties himself for the first time in his career. "I was the least involved in the production of the Beatle records," Starr said in a statement. "And then with my solo records, I worked with some other great producers like Richard Perry, Arif Mardin, and Don Was. So it just seemed like that's the way that it goes. Then suddenly, it's another point in your life, and you say, 'I'm going do this now.' So I'll be producing anything I make from now on." I think that’s a good move, as someone like Starr should be much more capable at finding his own sound than some hired-gun producer. He places McCartney in a variety of roles on “Y Not,” including playing bass on the song "Peace Dream," as well as lead vocal duties on "Walk With You," a song composed by Starr and Van Dyke Parks. Some of the songs on the album are autobiographical, while others have a lighter vibe. Having heard Starr’s previous solo work, I have to say that it’s been much too mainstream and poppy for my tastes and hopefully by sitting in the producer’s chair from here on out, he will be able to eliminate that aspect and focus on making music that is good rather than simply making music that he thinks people will buy………

- Five words for Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig: Welcome to the party, pal. What the rest of us, both those inside the sport and outside, have been saying for a long time now is that there are far too many off days during the playoffs. For example, heading into Game 6 of this year’s American League Championship Series, the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in Orange County near Costa Mesa had each played a whopping eight games in the previous 20 days. Basically, they were playing an average of less than three games per week at that point. Angels manager Mike Scioscia ripped the current format during that debacle and with the chorus of critics against the system growing louder and larger by the day, Selig has finally capitulated and agreed to address the problem. "We're going to change it," Selig said. "I don't disagree with Mike Scioscia. I think he was right, so we're going to try and tighten that up." He hopes to significantly cut down on off days during the postseason next year, a decision that will be warmly received by players, managers and fans. Of course, this announcement would be even greater were it accompanied by a sharp and swift about-face by Selig on the issue of expanding instant replay in baseball, but the commissioner was only willing to say that he would continue to discuss any potential expansion. “I'm going to talk to a lot of people. I haven't changed my view at all, but I'm always willing to talk to a lot of people and I've talked to a lot of managers and I've talked to a lot of general managers," Selig said. "I haven't heard from anybody about instant replay. The only comments I get are when I call somebody on a bunch of subjects and we talk about it." Whatever you say, commissioner Idiot. Heck, you don’t even have the actual plans for the new postseason format worked out, do you Bud? "When you plan the playoff schedule, you don't know how many games the first round would go. So it's difficult," he explained. "There were clubs that sat around. Some were necessary, but some were not." Exactly as I thought, moron. In the end, I suppose baseball fans will have to be content with the sport finally showing concern for them over of its television partners, for whom baseball added four extra days off during the postseason starting in 2007 in order to shift the World Series opener to Wednesday from Saturday, usually the lowest-rated night of the week. So a halfway decent announcement by the commissioner, but next time let’s try for something that’s all the way decent, k…………

- For those in the Dallas area who are excited about the design for the George W. Bush Presidential Center and library, I have one key piece of advice: expect lots of coloring books, picture books and Mad Libs. Every former president gets a library in his honor in a city of his choosing, so W. has chosen the Dallas area and specifically the area around the campus of Southern Methodist University. After all a prolonged debate over land and traffic control around the SMU area, Former First Lady Laura Bush unveiled the design for the George W. Bush Presidential Center this week. The complex will house a library, museum and the archive for George W. Bush's presidential papers – i.e. doodles of rainbows, stick figures and half-finished games of tic-tac-toe. It will be a brick and limestone building with include a replica of the oval office along with a rose garden similar to the White House – y’know, so W. can pretend to be running the country just like he pretended to run it while evil Vice Lord Cheney pulled the strings from 2001-2008? Mrs. Bush chaired the design committee and says her ass hat of a husband wanted something modern which fit the SMU campus. "This was really something I enjoyed every minute of I had things I wanted ways I wanted it to be," says Former First Lady Laura Bush. The center will be located in a field of wildflowers and prairie designed by Michael Van Valkenburgh (a designed, manufactured field of wildflowers and prairie, how quaint and not at all phony). After walking through that bogus field of wildflowers and prairie, visitors will first enter Freedom Hall, which architect Bob Stern says is one of the most inspiring areas. "Freedom is a form of light I think that's a important theme of building and the Bush presidency I think people should see it and glows and send an optimist view of the world." Pardon me while I attempt to stifle my laughter, Bob-O. Freedom was an important facet of the W. presidency? Which W. administration did you sit through? Unfortunately for those who would visit this monument to ineptitude, Laura Bush says she and her husband will have their offices at the library and plan to be around often. The library is expected to be open in 2013, which should be more than enough time to collect enough Curious George, Clifford the Big Red Dog and coloring books………

- Oh, how I loves me an international conspiracy theory. Nothing is better than one nation-state accusing another nation-state of some sort of illegal, unethical and destructive act done covertly under the cover of darkness. It’s no surprise to hear such allegations being made by either side in the ongoing battle between Colombia and Venezuela. The South American neighbors have been at one another’s throats in earnest ever since the Colombian government decided to allow the United States to use its military bases as a launching point for operations against drug cartels. Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez believes that the U.S. is up to something much more sinister (as he is prone to do) and has used that excuse to wage a non-stop crusade against Colombia. The Colombian government claims that crusade continued overnight when Venezuelan soldiers blew up two pedestrian bridges across the Colombia-Venezuelan border. Colombian Defense Minister Gabriel Silva said explosives were used to blow up the bridges in what he termed a violation of international law. "Uniformed men, apparently from the Venezuelan army, arrived in trucks on the Venezuelan side at two pedestrian bridges that link communities on both sides ... and then proceeded to dynamite them," Silva said. Hmm….does that sound like something Hugo Chavez and his government would do? Ah heck, who am I kidding? Of course it’s something they would do! In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Chavez were the first man off the truck explosives in hand and destruction in his eyes. Because I very much want this story to be true, I’m going to go ahead and assume that it is. Now, it’s your move, Colombia, make your retaliation a doozy so we can really kick this thing up a notch………

- Prepare to revolt and organize your requisite “I hate new Facebook ___________” groups, Facebook users. That’s the inevitable response any time Facebook institutes a change to its site, whether that change is to layout, function or security. A large chunk of users are pissed no matter what the change is and they (hypocritically) use the very site and technology they are pissed at to organize against…… the very site and technology they are pissed at to organize against. The latest change involves a new photo ulpoader on Facebook, designed to make uploading photos faster and simpler. As of today, the site has introduced a new Photo Uploader Prototype, described as “a preview of an upcoming replacement for the existing Facebook photo uploader. This brand new experience makes use of the new Facebook Plug-In, a light-weight browser plug-in.” Users can activate the new app and begin using it immediately. The process of setting it up is also fairly simple: the first time you launch the uploader, you’ll be asked to install a new Facebook Plugin. The plugin works with all major operating systems - Windows, Mac OS X and Ubuntu Linux 8.04 and up - and should install right in your browser. If not, just download it separately and run the file. Best of all, you don’t even need to restart your browser to use the plugin. Once it’s installed, you’ll see the standard “Create an Album” screen, but when you select “Select Photos,” a different window will pop up than you are used to. The new app allows users to select folders or a folder within a folder, add photos from all over your computer and upload them together. One of the best features is that instead of appearing in a pop-up window that ties you to the upload page, the upload process will now take place in the background, allowing the user to back to using Facebook instead of waiting for the files to upload. Bear in mind that because this app is stil a prototype, threw will undoubtedly be some bugs and issues to work out. If that occurs, you can deactivate the prototype and go back to the old method of uploading. Facebook hopes to have a final version of the app as a permanent replacement for all users soon, so maybe that’s when the protest groups and angry posturing will get going in earnest………

Kansas football in big, FAT trouble, an imbecilic kook risks her life savings and I ponder ways to sue that tool Jon Gosselin

- This cannot be good news for University of Kansas football coach Mark Mangino. I’m already worried about Mangino on a daily basis because dude is so unbelievably, immensely FAT that I worry the stress of being a major-college football coach will ultimately team up with his obesity and deliver a fatal heart attack to the portly coach. That stress is about to go up another notch, as the school announced Tuesday that it is investigating an unspecified personnel issue involving Mangino. A source familiar with the situation claimed that one particular incident allegedly involved Mangino yelling at and making contact with a player earlier this season. Other players have allegedly threatened to transfer because of what they perceive as having been spoken to in an inappropriate manner and still more players and their parents have had meetings with athletic director Lew Perkins about the situation. Perkins met with the entire team Monday night sans Mangino, who has been beset by anger issues throughout his eight-year tenure at UK. Yet even with his team mired in a five-game losing streak, the coach conceded that he's lost the support of "some people around here," but insisted that he still has the support of his team. "I haven't lost the team, not one bit," Mangino said. "I may have lost some people around here but it's not players. Take it for what it's worth. You decipher it and see." So on the one hand, you have these issues stacking up against Mangino and on the other hand, you have the success he’s had since taking over the program in 2002. He led the Jayhawks to their greatest season ever in 2007, a 12-1 record, capped by an Orange Bowl victory over Virginia Tech and Mangino being named Associated Press coach of the year. In response, the athletic department began pouring money into the football program and working upgrading its decaying facilities. Unfortunately, their obese head coach hasn’t exactly followed up that successful 2007 season with anything remotely resembling improvement or elite performance. This season, they built a 5-0 record by playing a schedule full of cupcakes, climbing to No. 16 in the AP poll, before losing five heading into a brutal matchup this week at No. 3 Texas. Hard to imagine players giving their all against a vastly superior opponent for a coach that many of them seem to hate. This new incident is hardly the first time Mangino has been under the microscope for his treatment of players; a few years ago, he became a YouTube legend when cameras caught him angrily cursing a player who drew a penalty for hotdogging. His anger-management issues have even extended to his son’s high school football games, where a run-in with officials during a game led the school to ban Mangino from the sideline. All of this might be swept under the rug if he were running one of the nation’s best programs and winning league titles on a regular basis, but the bottom line is that Mangino is a pedestrian 50-46 overall in his eight seasons at Kansas and an awful 23-39 in the Big 12. My advice to you, coach M., is to lose about 200 pounds, go to anger management and get your life under control before you are a) fired and b) hospitalized for a massive heart attack………....

- A word of advice for you, reality TV knob Jon Gosselin: You need to rethink your plan to sue the TLC network for $5 million. While you may believe that the network and its representatives damaged your reputation and career by preventing you from working with other media outlets, your lawsuit is inspiring an idea in my mind that I think will catch on with the rest of America which, by the way, hates your freaking guts, you IQ-deprived ass clown. While you sue TLC for $5 million, I find myself think that I would like to sue you, Jon Gosselin, for the freaking emotional distress and suffering you have inflicted on me and every other American who has been subjected to even one second of conversation or news about your sorry ass. You, my man, are a random idiot who became quasi-famous only because he knocked up his attention whore of a wife and with the aid of fertility drugs, that pregnancy resulted in sextuplets. You are prolific only in the fact that you have cranked out eight kids, which is eight more than a nincompoop like you should ever be allowed to have. So if you don’t back off your lawsuit against TLC, I’m going to go ahead with my plan to sue you for whatever you might earn from the case, doubled. As for the lawsuit itself, Gosselin alleges that TLC contacted various media outlets he'd been in touch with to persuade them to stop dealing with him. "Their behavior has caused Jon great anguish and it has caused him financial losses," said his attorney, Mark Heller. Heller maintains Gosselin did not have an attorney or a manager present when he signed the contract for "Jon and Kate Plus Eight" with TLC last year. Umm, whose fault would that be? "They had a cadre of lawyers so they had a one-sided agreement," Heller added. No dispute there, counselor. Your client is a moron and the fact is that even if he’d had F. Lee Bailey and Johnnie Cochran in their primes, he would have been totally outclassed and outsmarted – even if TLC were represented by a half-dozen mentally handicapped raccoons. Gosselin’s lawsuit is actually a counterclaim against a lawsuit that TLC has filed against him, but it gives him a chance to claim the network breached its own contract with him and owes him $175,000 for shows that already aired. The contract, dated April 28, 2008, says he gets $22,500 for each half-hour episode and $45,000 for each one-hour episode, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed in District Court in Rockville, Maryland, where TLC's parent company, Discovery Communications, is based. TLC’s original lawsuit claims that Gosselin is in violation of his contract with them for making paid and unpaid TV appearances without the network's permission. The next hearing in that case will be Dec. 14, giving Gosselin time to waste even more of the world’s time by trying to extract as much time in the public eye as possible while awaiting his eventual slaughter in court……….

- What with our country currently running a national deficit in the trillions of dollars, I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that the federal government making $98 billion in improper payments in fiscal 2009 is not a good thing. Welcome to life in these here United States, where a new administration has managed to show that it can colossally f*ck up just like the previous one. The 2009 total for improper payments -- from outright fraud to misdirected reimbursements due to factors such as an illegible doctor's signature -- was a 37.5 percent increase over the $72 billion in 2008. Those figures were provided by Peter Orszag, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. To address the problem, President Obama will issue an executive order in coming days to combat the problem. In a disturbing development, Orszag was unable to provide an overall figure for what percentage of the bad payments was due to fraud, nor could he provide a breakdown on how much of the total improper payments involved spending on Obama's $787 billion economic recovery package passed in February. Instead of those answers, we will get an executive order designed to promote some of the very things Obama promised in his campaign and has thus far failed to deliver: transparency, strengthen accountability and improving the government payment process. "Our goal is to make sure the right person or entity gets the right amount at the right time," Orszag said. He also attempted to deflect blame for the problem by explaining that the increase in the total over the previous year was due in part to improved detection through stricter and expanded accounting methods. In other words, the problem really isn't any worse than in the past, we were just paying closer attention this time. Examples of excess are easy to find, examples like the $24 billion of improper payments in the Medicare fee-for-service health care program for senior citizens. Should Obama and Democratic leaders actually succeed in eliminating more than $100 billion in government subsidies for the Medicare Advantage program in which private insurers supplement standard Medicare coverage and shave the several hundred billion dollars from national health care costs that they are touting, it would be a decisive victory indeed. As for the executive order, it will set up up Web site dashboards for each agency to provide the public with "easy-to-follow" information on improper payments, designate Senate-appointed officials in each agency to be accountable for combating improper payments and require specific plans for reducing improper payments when any agency shows an increase two years in a row. States and local communities will be rewarded for reducing improper payments and penalized for not reporting such offenses. In total, 99 agencies and programs that received $1.98 trillion in 2009, with $98 billion of the money -- or 5 percent -- in improper payments. The most egregious offenders were: $24 billion for Medicare fee-for service, out of a total of $308 billion, $18 billion for Medicaid health care for the poor, out of a total of $188 billion, $12 billion for Medicaid Advantage, out of a total of $77 billion, $12 billion for unemployment insurance, out of a total of $119 billion and 12 billion for the Earned Income Tax Credit, out of a total of $48 billion. In other words, more of the same for a country that is still in need of drastic change……….....

- Tony Dungy is a man of many talents, but he is apparently on some sort of mission to become the Mother Theresa of American football. In addition to his new role as an analyst for NBC on its Sunday night football show, he has spent the past year or so as a mentor to embattled quarterback Michael Vick following Vick’s conviction and jail term for operating a dogfighting ring in his native Virginia. Dungy met with Vick regularly during his time behind bars and has continued to serve as a mentor and role model since Vick’s release from prison. Now that Vick is a member of the Philadelphia Eagles and has managed to stay out of trouble thus far in the season, calling Dungy’s mentoring efforts a success would seem fair. Having gotten one train wreck back on the tracks, Dungy has now set his sights on a new reclamation project: New Mexico football coach Mike Locksley. Locksley, famous for a) guiding his team to a winless season up to this point and b) punching one of his assistant coaches in the head and choking him during a Sept. 20 staff meeting, says he has turned to Tony Dungy as a personal mentor. After losing his first ten games as a head coach and being suspended for blasting one of his assistants in the face, this would seem like a good idea. Dungy is universally respected around the sports world as a man of faith, character and integrity. When he speaks, people listen and they believe what he is telling them. If he is mentoring you and you do enough to earn his trust and convince him that you have changed, his word will count for a lot with the rest of the world. "I see coach Dungy being a guy with a wealth of experience and knowledge, not just in football, but in life," Locksley said. "He's a class act. A guy that I have a ton of respect for and I thought it would be another source of information for me to grow as a head coach." So far, Locksley says their conversations have focused on how his first year on the sideline at New Mexico has "been a whirlwind for me.” The first thing Dungy should advise Locksley to do, aside from not punching any more assistant coaches in the face, is to apologize to former New Mexico coach J.B. Gerald, the man he allegedly choked and punched him during that Sept. 20 attack. Should Dungy be able to bring Locksley’s troubled coaching career back from the brink of disaster on the heels of steering Vick back from disaster, he truly will be on his way to earning the title of the Mother Theresa of the football world……....

- This next story is more than a little kooky. Sure, when most of us go out of town for a few days, we worry about the security of our most valued possessions. Will someone break into our home while we are away and steal our money, jewelry and electronics? We all have those fears, but we don’t all take our life savings to a local Catholic shrine for safekeeping while we’re gone. An unidentified woman in Emmitsburg, Md. decided that this was her best option and elected to quietly leave $40,000 worth of coins, her life savings, at the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes at Mt. St. Mary's University near Emmitsburg. This weirdo claimed she wanted the Virgin Mary to watch over her money while she was out of town, and it apparently worked. When she returned home, she was able to get her money back from operators of the shrine, who thought they had been blessed with a big donation when a groundskeeper found the two plastic freezer bags filled with gold and silver while raking leaves. "I said, 'Why did you leave it there?' And she said, 'Well, I had to go away and I was afraid to leave it and I wanted the Blessed Mother to watch over it for me -- and evidently she did because you found it,"' shrine director William Tronolone said. Apparently grotto visitors often leave anonymous donations, so this wasn’t totally out of the blue. But Tronolone admits that he was surprised when Director the woman approached him after a noon Mass Sunday, six days after the discovery, to ask whether anyone had found the rare coins. Fortunately for her, university officials had had the coins appraised, notified police and placed the rare currency, contained inside two freezer bags and initially covered with leaves, in a safe. Ultimately this situation could be a great thing for this bizarre woman, as the school's security director was able to persuade her to put the coins in her safe deposit box (seriously). That begs the obvious question of why the hell a person wouldn’t just put the coins in the safety deposit box to begin with. Even if you are one of the most religious people in the world and have all the confidence in the world that some inanimate object is watching over you, how is a safety deposit box at some random Maryland bank a terrible option? Besides, the Emmitsburg statue is a replica, not even the real thing. Sure, it draws more than 200,000 visitors annually, but a knockoff statue safeguarding your life savings? As bad as the outlook is for banks these days, I think I’d pick the safety deposit box……..