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Words of Wisdom

  • One way to make sure crime doesn't pay would be to let the government run it.
    --Ronald Reagan
  • We can not play innocents abroad in a world that is not innocent.
    --Ronald Reagan
  • If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.
    --George Washington
  • A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
    --George Bernard Shaw
  • Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.
    --Franz Kafka
  • I think that people, in circumstances of stress, can behave like swine, and that this, indeed, is not only a fit subject, but the only subject, of drama.
    --David Mamet
  • A civilization is built on what is required of men, not on that which is provided for them.
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery
  • The truth does not require your belief in it to be so.
    --Spike Spencer
  • Don't resent growing old. Many are denied the privilege.
    --Irish Proverb
  • Giving money to the government is like giving whiskey, guns and car keys to your teenage son.
    --P.J. O'Rourke
  • What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.
    --Edward Langley
  • I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic. And we should stand up and say we are Americans, and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration!
    --Senator Hillary Clinton
  • It is not who is right, but what is right, that is of importance.
    --Thomas Huxley
  • Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often - and for the same reason!
    --Will Rogers
  • It is easy to sit up and take notice. What is difficult is getting up and taking action.
    --Al Batt
  • It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required.
    --Sir Winston Churchill
  • All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
    --Edmund Burke
  • Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money.
    --Jules Renard
  • When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
    --Thomas Jefferson
  • In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.
    --John Adams
  • The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.
    --Margaret Thatcher
  • Beware the greedy hand of government, thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry.
    --Thomas Paine
  • A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.
    --Thomas Jefferson
  • I have certain rules I live by. My first rule: I don’t believe anything the government tells me.
    --George Carlin
  • Those whom the gods would destroy, they give unlimited budget.
    --Twyla Tharp
  • When small men begin to cast long shadows, it's a sure sign the sun is setting.
    --Rush Limbaugh
  • A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.
    --Edward R. Murrow
  • The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
    --Thomas Jefferson
  • In the United States, anybody can be President. That's the problem.
    --George Carlin
  • If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.
    --Mark Twain
  • Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.
    --Groucho Marx
  • The people of America expect us to seek public office and to serve for the right reasons. And the right reason is to challenge the status quo and serve the common good.
    --Governor Sarah Palin
  • Engrave this in your brain: EVERY WRITER GETS REJECTED. You will be no different.
    --John Scalzi
  • When you laugh you are not afraid. When you are not afraid you are free.
    --Gregorius Nekschot
  • Every human being is an end in himself, not the means to the ends or the welfare of others, and therefore, man must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself.
    --Ayn Rand
  • Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.
    --William Buckley
  • In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
    --George Orwell
  • Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway.
    --John Wayne
  • I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
    --Will Rogers
  • Change is not a destination, just as hope is not a strategy.
    --Rudy Giuliani
  • You can make a bad film out of a good screenplay if you screw it up along the way, and there's a million places to screw it up, but you're never going to make a good film out of a bad screenplay. So you have to start with the screenplay, period.
    --George Clooney
  • I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.
    --Douglas Adams
  • There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life.
    --Oscar Wilde
  • People say that money is not the key to happiness, but I always figured if you have enough money, you can have a key made.
    --Joan Rivers
  • Everybody keeps calling for Excellence — excellence not just in schooling, throughout society. But as soon as somebody or something stands out as Excellent, the other shout goes up: ‘Elitism!’ And whatever produced that thing, whoever praises that result, is promptly put down.
    --Jacques Barzun
  • Live free or die. Death is not the worst of evils.
    --General John Stark
  • When I examine myself and my methods of thought I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing knowledge.
    --Albert Einstein
  • Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
    --George Santayana
  • Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.
    --Alfred Hitchcock
  • Let us dare to read, think, speak and write.
    --John Adams
  • It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
    --William Shakespeare (Macbeth)
  • Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe.
    --Albert Einstein
  • You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.
    --Ray Bradbury
  • Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.
    --E.L. Doctorow
  • Character is how you behave when no one is looking.
    --Dr. Robert Coles
  • You need three things to make a good movie: a good script, a good script and a good script.
    --Alfred Hitchcock
  • Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.
    --Albert Camus
  • How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?
    --Ruth Gordon
  • It must be very chilling to stare at your blank page...
    --Kevin Gilbert, "Leaving Miss Broadway"
  • In studying the traits and dispositions of the so-called lower animals, and contrasting them with man's, I find the result humiliating to me.
    --Mark Twain
  • Writing is a dog’s life, but the only one worth living.
    --Gustave Flaubert
  • The morning breeze has secrets to tell you. Do not go back to sleep.
    --Rumi
  • There's not much to say about acting but this. Never settle back on your heels. Never relax. If you relax, the audience relaxes. And always mean everything you say.
    --James Cagney
  • Having resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.
    --Malachy McCourt
  • It takes a lot of time being a genius, you have to sit around so much, doing nothing.
    --Gertrude Stein
  • You are always already happy. The reason you don't experience it is that it's covered up by layers of suppressed emotions and negative thoughts. Shift your attention and your inherent happiness flashes forth.
    --Steve Ross
  • Meow is like aloha - it can mean anything.
    --Hank Ketchum
  • A cat has absolute emotional honesty. Human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.
    --Ernest Hemingway
  • Happiness is a place between too little and too much.
    --Finnish proverb
  • Hollywood is wonderful. Anyone who doesn't like it is either crazy or sober.
    --Raymond Chandler
  • To ride a horse is to ride the sky.
    --Anonymous
  • Life is a strange school.
    --Earon Davis
  • She is too fond of books, and it has addled her brain.
    --Louisa May Alcott
  • I pray thee, O God, that I may be beautiful within.
    --Socrates
  • Fans are people who let an actor know he's not alone in the way he feels about himself.
    --Jack Carson
  • It's like God said, "You just think you've seen horses. I'm gonna show you a horse." Then he built Secretariat.
    --Jim Reno
  • A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit.
    --Richard Bach
  • You can't try to do things; you simply must do them.
    --Ray Bradbury
  • Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.
    --Henry Ford
  • No one ever realizes they're a writer. They just think they're a writer.
    --Charles Bukowski
  • People in the entertainment industry are by and large whore-chasing drug-addict fuckups. But they still believe they're better than the guy in Wyoming who really loves his wife and takes care of his kids and is a good, outstanding, wholesome person. Hollywood views regular people as children, and they think they're the smart ones who need to tell the idiots out there how to be.
    --Trey Parker
  • If my books had been any worse I should not have been invited to Hollywood and if they had been any better I should not have come.
    --Raymond Chandler
  • Geography is destiny. I got lucky - my parents hatched me in a cool locale.
    --James Ellroy
  • Every writer I know has trouble writing.
    --Joseph Heller
  • Writing is easy. You just sit down at the typewriter and open a vein.
    --Red Smith
  • If you are going to ask yourself life-changing questions, be sure to do something with the answers.
    --Bo Bennett
  • To love what you do and feel that it matters - how could anything be more fun?
    --Katherine Graham
  • You are what you do. If you do boring, stupid, monotonous work, chances are you'll end up boring, stupid and monotonous.
    --Bob Black
  • There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way.
    --Christopher Morley
  • Success is doing what you like and making a living at it.
    --Greek proverb
  • Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called Everybody and they meet at the bar.
    --Drew Carey
  • I don't dream at night, I dream all day. I dream for a living.
    --Steven Spielberg
  • If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
    --Old proverb
  • Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But I repeat myself.
    --Mark Twain
  • A love for tradition has never weakened a nation, indeed it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril.
    --Winston Churchill
  • I'm not a real movie star. I've still got the same wife I started out with twenty-eight years ago.
    --Will Rogers
  • Talent is God-given; be humble. Fame is man-given; be thankful. Conceit is self-given; be careful.
    --John Wooden
  • There is no terror in the bang, only the anticipation of it.
    --Alfred Hitchcock
  • Betwixt the stirrup and the ground, Mercy I asked, and mercy I found.
    --William Camden
  • Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.
    --Robert Benchley
  • There are no ordinary cats.
    --Colette
  • Wine is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy.
    --Benjamin Franklin
  • Idling has always been my strong point. I take no credit to myself - it is a gift.
    --Jerome K. Jerome
  • If you describe things as better than they are, you are considered to be a romantic; if you describe things as worse than they are, you will be called a realist; and if you describe things exactly as they are, you will be thought of as a satirist.
    --Quentin Crisp
  • There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.
    --Leonard Cohen
  • A blank page is God's way of showing you how hard it is to be God.
    --Anonymous
  • Hell is other people.
    --Jean Paul Satre
  • Whenever you write, whatever you write, never make the mistake of assuming the audience is any less intelligent than you are.
    --Rod Serling
  • It’s amazing how much panic one honest man can spread among a multitude of hypocrites.
    --Thomas Sowell
  • I love being a writer. What I can’t stand is the paperwork.
    --Peter DeVries
  • I hate writing, but I love having written.
    --Dorothy Parker
  • Insults should be well avenged, or well endured.
    --Spanish proverb
  • It’s none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way.
    --Ernest Hemingway
  • The road to truth is long, and lined the entire way with annoying bastards.
    --Alexander Jablokov
  • How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads, to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams.
    --Bram Stoker
  • This is part of the infinite goodness of God, that he should allow evil to exist, and out of it produce good.
    --St. Thomas Aquinas
  • Television is an invention that allows you to be entertained in your living room by people you would not have in your home.
    --David Frost
  • Make movies that make people laugh, cry, or keep them on the edge of their seats.
    --Carl Laemmle, founder of Universal Studios
  • It´s better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.
    --Mark Twain
  • We do subversive pull-ups everyday.
    --Matt Stone, explaining how he and "South Park" co-creator Trey Parker stay sharp
  • When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap.
    --Cynthia Heimel
  • How beautiful it is to do nothing, and then rest afterward.
    --Spanish proverb
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July 09, 2009

"I never got to go to Neverland"

Thanks to galtheval for tweeting this gem: Hitler finds out Michael Jackson has died:  

This is even more hysterical if you've seen Downfall, the movie this scene was taken from.  It's a depressing and haunting film that really exposes a defeated Hitler and those close to him that he took down with him.  I think this is the scene where he completely turns on the German people, denouncing them as deserving to be conquered if they can't stop the approaching Allied forces.  It was really shocking how he completely abandoned them when they didn't live up to his dreams of world domination.

I think it works equally well for MJ.

July 07, 2009

The ghost of Michael Jackson?

I know it's probably just a trick of the light, or possibly a shadow from someone walking by a window, but how cool would it be if it really was him?  Would be quite the thriller.

Haunted Neverland?

July 06, 2009

RIP Mrs. Slocombe

Are You Being Served's Mollie Sugden has died.

And yes, I'm much more bummed about this than Michael Jackson. 

June 25, 2009

Three in one day?

As you've probably already heard, Farrah Fawcett passed away this morning.  As Ed McMahon had just died the other day I couldn't help wondering who would have the misfortune to complete the hat trick.

After watching a couple things on the DVR, I turned on the news, where the big story was that Michael Jackson had been rushed to UCLA Med Center in full cardiac arrest and that he had been found not breathing.  I thought, that doesn't sound promising.  A short while later they confirmed that he had died.  It was pretty surreal, although when you think about it, someone that bizarre probably isn't destined for a long life.

I headed down Hollywood Boulevard around 4:30 to hit Fresh & Easy and came upon this:

062509_16361

Sorry you can't see it better (camera phone) but that's for Farrah. They don't have an arrangement out for MJ yet and they won't until tomorrow, because his star is right outside the Chinese Theater and is covered up tonight due to the Bruno premiere.  Local media is reporting that some Jackson fans are congregating to the star belonging to the other Michael Jackson (the radio personality).

When I got to the library today a couple people were caught unaware by the news.  To add to the surreal feeling of the day, one guy here claimed that Jeff Goldblum also died today after falling off a cliff while filming.  This one appears to be a false alarm, I haven't seen anything about it in the news.  Besides, Kevin Spacey says Goldblum still walks among the living.

Jeff Goldblum is alive and well. I just spoke to his manager. Stop these stupid rumors.

How creepy must it be to know someone started rumors of your death?

All in all, a weird day in Hollywood.

June 23, 2009

Luc Robitaille named to Hockey Hall of Fame

Congratulations Luuuuuuuc!

Truly a well-deserved honor.  In addition to his accomplishments on ice, he's just one of the classiest pro althletes ever and has always been great with fans.  Probably the most well-loved King ever and that includes Gretzky.

One of my happiest Luc memories: Attending the game where they retired his number.

June 22, 2009

We've been referring to him as a future Hall of Famer for years

One of the candidates for induction into Hockey's Hall of Fame is the Kings beloved Luc Robitaille.  The announcement will be made tomorrow.

I'm really pulling for him.  He deserves it.  And if I didn't have to get off the library's computer in three minutes, I'd research to see if any Kings player (besides Marcel Dionne) has made the Hall.

Good luck, Lucky! 

June 20, 2009

A slightly different "mother" word comes to mind

The good news is that I finally got the HP piece-o-crap to the Geek Squad yesterday.  Diagnosis: cracked motherboard.

The bad news is that Geek Squad doesn't actually repair it themselves.  They just send it to HP to be fixed.  Since I was there and since my history dealing with HP isn't pretty, I decided to let the geeks handle it for me.  They'll call me in a week or so with an estimate, which the geek informed me will probably be in the neighborhood of $300-$400, then when I give them the okay, HP will repair it.  So it will probably be gone for weeks.  Again. 

Hello, local library branch!

June 18, 2009

You know it kills me to admit this

I'm with Obama on this one: PETA takes the President to task for swatting a fly.

I swear, PETA is like a living Monty Python sketch.  Only sillier.

Kings executives to live tweet during NHL draft

According to this guy, and I guess he's in a position to know. 

Twitter is devouring the world!

Update: Per LAKingsHockey, Kings tweeters will include Dean Lombardi, Ron Hextall and Luc Robitaille.  Schweet. 

June 12, 2009

My HP piece-o-crap is on the fritz again

Greetings from the Los Angeles County Library in Hollywood!  What's that?  Oh, you're wondering why I'm blogging from library?

Let's recap, shall we?

  • March 2007 - I purchase an HP laptop from Circuit City in Burbank. 
  • February 2008 - At less than a year old, the hard drive crashes.  Fortunately (and this is the only good part of the story) it's still under warranty, barely, so I don't have to pay to fix it.  When their crack customer service peeps in India aren't able to diagnose and fix the problem over the phone, I'm told I'll have to ship it to HP for repair.  This will take about 5 - 7 working days.  I ship it out and don't see the thing again for almost a month.  Part of the delay: They're waiting for a part.  At the repair center.  A part for one of their own machines.
  • June 2009 (last night to be exact) - One moment everything's fine, the next I'm looking at a screen gone completely haywire and bearing an unfortunate resemblance to the events of February 2008.  I turn it off, then turn it back on and...nothing.  Completely dark screen.  Awesome.

I'm not even bothering with HP at this point.  I was busy today and will be tomorrow as well, but Sunday the laptop has a hot date with the Nerd Herd (I wish) Geek Squad.

Words cannot describe how badly I want to get back to work full-time so I can replace this piece of crap with a Mac and never soil myself with an HP product again.

June 10, 2009

Acting up

The SAG debacle is finally freaking over.  The new contract has been ratified.

The vote was 78% in favor, 22% against.  That is a huge, unexpected majority and will hopefully send a message to the vocal minority that opposed it, although I doubt it.  Even worse, it makes you wonder if this really had to go on so long, crippling the industry in the process.  I know so many below the line workers who have been absolutely ravaged financially by this, not to mention the ripple effect caused by greatly reduced spending in the area of things like lunches, parties, gifts, and hiring assistant types like me.

I am still utterly dumbfounded that there were people in SAG, some of them big names and major players and in positions of union power, who really thought that they didn't need to settle like all the other unions despite the fact that not only was the industry already wounded by the writer's strike, but also by the fact that the economy as a whole was in the toilet.  I understand the actor's ego and I also understand they're the faces people pay/tune in to see, but until they're also writing, directing, lighting, editing, posting, dressing the sets, designing wardrobes, doing their own hair and makeup, scouting locations and funding projects themselves, then they need to understand that there are things that are actually bigger than them, just like the rest of us.

I will give the Membership First faction this: They did a masterful job of preventing a vote that revealed just how little support they really had all along for an entire damn year.  Seriously, well played, except for the part where they totally screwed so many people. *sarcastically applauds in their general direction*

Now let's get everybody back to work and back to the business of make-believe (as opposed to real life) drama.

Comedy and tragedy.  It's not just for the theater.

Punkins2006d

June 08, 2009

Joel McHale at the Wiltern Theatre

A couple months ago Joel McHale was signing off on an episode of The Soup, rattling off random places he'd be performing live and said, "Come see me June 6th at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles."

Don't have to tell me twice.

So the brother and I scored tickets and finally last weekend the big night arrived. And it was worth every damn cent of the $60 my part-time employed self coughed up for my ticket.

I took the subway to the historic Wiltern - it required a somewhat awkward transfer to the Purple Line (formerly the Wilshire/Western leg of the Red Line) but no traffic, no parking and I exited the subway directly across the street from the theatre.  My brother was already there and we went in, had a drink, found our seats and chatted until the show began.

There were two comics who opened the show.  The first was Brooks McBeth, who did a terrific bit as Vince the Sham-Wow guy trying to talk his date into sex.  After the Sham-Wow type pitch, the audience member selected to "play" the date read her line "I'd love to, but I'm on my period" to which Brooks/Vince responded, "Period, shmeriod.  I've got Sham-Wow!" (If you don't get that, the Sham-Wow pitch is that it holds ten times its weight in, um, liquid.)

When Brooks finished, Matt the Intern ran onstage, grabbed the mic and pleaded with the audience to let his family know where he was so they could free him from the bondage of working for Joel McHale.  Joel came out and shot him, then headed backstage.

Brooks was followed by K.P. Anderson, who was also fantastic and apparently tweeted while Joel was on.  He lamented that when you're married like he is, you can't brag to your buddies about your sexual exploits.  Apparently scoring with your own wife just isn't the same as scoring with some random chick.

Mankini then made a brief appearance to unenthusiastically read a glowing introduction to Joel.

I really didn't know what to expect - would Joel's set be all Soup-related?  Would it be completely non-Soup related?  Would it be a live Soup?  The few times I've seen Joel outside of The Soup - as a guest of Kevin & Bean and Craig Ferguson and as an actor on Pushing Daisies - there was no stand-up performed.

Joel took what I thought was the smart route.  He started out with Soup-related material that everyone got, like meeting the Kardashians face-to-face, ripping on Tyra Banks morbid fear of dolphins and being ordered by the head of E! to apologize to Ryan Seacrest for ragging on the little guy.  He answered the burning question of Ryan's sexual orientation by assuring us that Ryan is most definitely not gay, explaining, he totally wasn't into it when we fucked.  Then he moved on to a more traditional goldmine of comedic inspiration: family.

The place was packed, it had to be a sellout, and we had a blast, although I would have loved it if Lou had made an appearance.

While driving over the brother had noticed that there was a Denny's on the same block as the Wiltern, so after the show we headed over for a late-night breakfast (hey, it was his treat, so he picked the place).  And seriously, The Ultimate Omelet (easy on the cheese) is delish and filling.

One thing I wish I'd known about the Wiltern is that they allow cameras, because I would have brought one and gotten some awesome pics.  I stashed the cellphone in a small compartment of my purse, cleverly hidden under a "sanitary pad" in the hopes they wouldn't turn me away at the door.  So the only pics I was able to get were with the phone and they aren't great.  But I was there and I had a great time.  Play L.A. again soon, Joel!

Joelmchale

June 05, 2009

CSI: Los Angeles

Whoa: Veteran LAPD Detective arrested in 1986 murder.  Can't have been easy for them to bust one of their own, but nice work on the cold case.

I think I've seen this on television.  From the linked L.A. Times article:

Detectives returned to the Rasmussen killing, testing DNA material allegedly left by the killer. The tests showed that it belonged to a woman, disproving the theory that the victim had been killed by a man.

The original case file, Beck said, contained a reference to Lazarus, who was known at the time to have had a romantic relationship with the victim's husband, John Ruetten.

Last week, undercover officers surreptitiously trailed Lazarus as she did errands one day, waiting until she discarded a coffee cup, straw or something else with her saliva on it, Beck said.

Her saliva sample was sent to a lab for comparison with DNA evidence Rasmussen's killer left at the crime scene. The genetic code in the two samples matched conclusively, police allege.

So tempting:

CSI_DNAkit

June 04, 2009

Co-Tweets of the day

I couldn't decide between them:

Andy Levy on the death of David Carradine (no disrespect meant BTW):

andylevy The headline "Hung Fu" would be in bad taste, right?

benwren, after Pittsburgh's Evgeni Malkin scored the first goal of Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals (which the Pens won to tie up the series):

benwren Dear mr and mrs malkin, thanks for having sex. Love, Pittsburgh.

Oh Twitter, how I love thee.  Except for the part where I don't get a damn thing done.

June 02, 2009

Just when I thought Twitter could not possibly be made of any more awesome...

I discover this: Psych writers are on Twitter.

Pineapples for everyone!

Psych pineapple

Image snicked from the official Psych store!  It's a magnet!  You can buy it!

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