Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Don't ask for a raise
Some people are all guts and glory and can march into the boss's office at the drop of a hat, demanding raises. Sometimes it pays off and they get it, other times the boss either ignores or fires them. But here's a boss - Rolandas Milinavicius, the owner of a car dealership in Atlanta - who had a different solution to pesky employees asking for more money.
He's been accused of killing two employees because they kept asking for pay raises. He's been charged with two counts of murder in the shooting deaths of Inga Contreras and Martynas Simokaitis.
So if you're thinking of asking for a raise, check the boss's mood first. Oh, and make sure he doesn't have any guns handy.
He's been accused of killing two employees because they kept asking for pay raises. He's been charged with two counts of murder in the shooting deaths of Inga Contreras and Martynas Simokaitis.
So if you're thinking of asking for a raise, check the boss's mood first. Oh, and make sure he doesn't have any guns handy.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Michael Moore subpoenaed
Michael Moore was on Leno last night and said he'd just found out the White House was issuing a subpoena for him because of his trip to Cuba.
Maybe Moore should just refuse it. Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten did!
Maybe Moore should just refuse it. Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten did!
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Short term memory loss caused by long commutes
Ah, this explains why I can't remember things anymore. It's rush hour in Los Angeles that's doing it to me.
What were we talking about?
What were we talking about?
Long commutes, research has shown, can lead to loss of short-term memory, more days of missed work and such ailments as higher blood pressure, muscle tension and an accelerated heart rate.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Dreaming of Bowie
Speaking of Bowie, this week's episode of "Flight of the Conchords" featured a Bowie dream.
Conchords
"Rome" was one of my all-time favorite shows. HBO canceled it. Then "Sopranos" ended. "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is far, far away. So is "The Extras." So maybe it's time to cancel HBO, at least for a few months.
But wait! Now they've given me my new favorite show, "Flight of the Conchords"!
No, I'm not going to try and describe it to you. Let's just say that you can laugh your ass off whether your baked or not. Not that I'm ever baked.
But wait! Now they've given me my new favorite show, "Flight of the Conchords"!
No, I'm not going to try and describe it to you. Let's just say that you can laugh your ass off whether your baked or not. Not that I'm ever baked.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
"Bat Boy," we hardly knew ye
Maybe the editors have been abducted by shape-shifting lizard aliens, you know, the ones behind the Kennedy assassination (or the ones who kept his head alive), behind 9-11, behind the birth of the Bush twins...
The "newspaper" and web site Weekly World News is going under. American Media, the owners, have decided to suspend publication. There's word that they had a buyout offer but turned it down.
Who's going to give us updates on that microphone they shoved into a volcano and heard screams from Hell?
Thursday, July 19, 2007
The Alex Theatre is not in Hollywood
Can someone pass a note along to the producers of "Last Comic Standing"? They did this last year too -- they keep saying that the Alex Theatre is in Hollywood. It's not. It's in Glendale. Glendale is a bona fide town, not even officially part of L.A., and certainly not part of Hollywood.
I realize they say that because "Hollywood" sounds sexier for the middle-America couch potato audience. Okay, I'm a couchie too, but still.
When KBIG was in Glendale, I walked by the Alex every day for lunch, on my way to find Nemo in my sushi. I found him often. I digress. And digest.
The producers of "American Idol" were similarly geographically challenged when they held auditions at the Alex... they kept saying "Live from the historic Alex Theatre in Los Angeles!" I remember the lines there one day... and that one smelly guy who ran up to me and screamed in my face, "I CAN SING DAWG!" Yes, I'm sure you can, but get the hell out of my way. Nemo is waiting for me with some low sodium soy sauce.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
Taking a few days off
I'm taking a v a c a t i o n.
I had to go look up the word, it's been so long since I used it.
No plans. I just needed some real time off, and that means I'm napping if I want, getting in my car and driving it into the ocean if I want, taking myself to a movie if I want, and sitting around the house naked watching Newsradio reruns if I want.
I had to go look up the word, it's been so long since I used it.
No plans. I just needed some real time off, and that means I'm napping if I want, getting in my car and driving it into the ocean if I want, taking myself to a movie if I want, and sitting around the house naked watching Newsradio reruns if I want.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Black cats and lucky (and unlucky) numbers
Friday the 13th!
Ah, superstition. It's all so fun and so damn silly.
Why are humans this way?
I'd like to recommend a life-changing book to you: "The Demon-Haunted World: Science As A Candle In The Dark" by Carl Sagan. It will give you a gift that keeps on giving -- a fully-active, self-loading "baloney detector." It'll teach you to think about what you think, to examine why you believe what you believe and if it's a good idea to believe it, and best of all, it'll teach you how to consider stuff that other people want you to believe.
Is Friday the 13th really unlucky? Do celebrity deaths always come in threes? Is that really Mary on that piece of toast? Will they really greet us as liberators?
Ah, superstition. It's all so fun and so damn silly.
Why are humans this way?
I'd like to recommend a life-changing book to you: "The Demon-Haunted World: Science As A Candle In The Dark" by Carl Sagan. It will give you a gift that keeps on giving -- a fully-active, self-loading "baloney detector." It'll teach you to think about what you think, to examine why you believe what you believe and if it's a good idea to believe it, and best of all, it'll teach you how to consider stuff that other people want you to believe.
Is Friday the 13th really unlucky? Do celebrity deaths always come in threes? Is that really Mary on that piece of toast? Will they really greet us as liberators?
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
My celebrity crush
Just saw an article that a man's "celebrity crush" reveals a lot about him. Whatever.
I've got a crush on Tina Fey. It's the glasses. It's the smarmy humor. It's the look. It's the glasses. Did I mention the glasses?
I've got a crush on Tina Fey. It's the glasses. It's the smarmy humor. It's the look. It's the glasses. Did I mention the glasses?
New business trend?
Is this a new business trend?
Sprint/Nextel is cutting off a few thousand customers, sending them packing. Their crime? They called customer service too much!
I've been with ATT Wireless for my cell phone service for years. Of course, they weren't always ATT. They'd become Cingular for a while, and service actually improved. But then Cingular was bought out by ATT, so now they're ATT Wireless again, and I've noticed that I'm dropping more calls, or am only able to hear half of any conversation.
When the only thing you can pick out that someone is saying is "Penguins... in the... hammers... stuck in... toaster... had to... kill it... lollipops," you know you're missing something good.
But am I going to call and complain? Not now. ATT might take a cue from Sprint and just fire me, and then I'll never be able to find out how they got those stuck penguins out of the toaster.
Sprint/Nextel is cutting off a few thousand customers, sending them packing. Their crime? They called customer service too much!
I've been with ATT Wireless for my cell phone service for years. Of course, they weren't always ATT. They'd become Cingular for a while, and service actually improved. But then Cingular was bought out by ATT, so now they're ATT Wireless again, and I've noticed that I'm dropping more calls, or am only able to hear half of any conversation.
When the only thing you can pick out that someone is saying is "Penguins... in the... hammers... stuck in... toaster... had to... kill it... lollipops," you know you're missing something good.
But am I going to call and complain? Not now. ATT might take a cue from Sprint and just fire me, and then I'll never be able to find out how they got those stuck penguins out of the toaster.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
— John Hancock
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
— John Hancock
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
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