Seven tickets to a private concert at the Little Purple One's private Minneapolis abode...kinda makes me want to buy the stinkin album...reviews aren't great so far, but it's a gimmick that just might work...
Last night Karlen asked me if I wasnted to go see V for Vendetta, and I am loathe to pass up a chance to go see just about any movie in the theater, so off to the Rave this afternoon.
Every Saturday morning I get up and flop on the couch. Karlen heads to go for one of her weekly runs - today downtown for sixteen miles - and I surf the net, stopping at the various blogs and movie trailer sites that I enjoy. Usually, 'round 8:30 The Batman flips on, and I begin the day's real work - typically for my KSU classes - when that fades away.
There is much sadness in the world. My good friend - Brian Sullivan - is no longer the head coach at Brescia University. Brian did resign on his own terms and is currently looking for a new position - preferrably in the Indiana / Kentucky area.
Apparently Isaac Hayes is all cool with South Park as long as their targets aren't his religion. Either he's finally figured out that it's all fn and games until you lose your own eye (it's still funny when other people lose theirs) or he's just got a thin skin covering his faux-Chef body.
Ah, a fine Sunday afternoon matinee in Springdale...just the right place to catch a cheaper showing of Dave Chapelle's Block Party...just me, my wife, and five other folks.
At least there is some good news in the world. It appears that sales of cigarettes have hit a 55-year low. There is some reason for celebration also in that it appears that high school seniors are smoking at an ever lower rate each year, suggesting good news for the future.
I've mentioned all the nasty, fatty, gross, heart-killing foods before, but this one is clearly different. This one has a donut for a bun and includes bacon and cheese. How can that be bad?
Karlen and I spent our honeymoon in Santa Fe, and it's a gorgeous place - really beautiful. It's a really neat place - very much artistic and historic. The climate is beautiful as is the landscape around the city. 
Don't get me wrong, I've got a soft spot for the people of the world who create things of beauty - even things of weird beauty. Take, for example, the recreation of Stonehenge that Karlen and I made on another trip we took together. We called it Fruithenge.
Okay, this article is not about the thing that makes Long John Silver's lobster bites, but it is about one freakish crustration. A hairy lobster? Werid...
I'm a hotmail kinda guy (for the non-work emails, you know), and each time I log in to hotmail, I get a list of three or four stupid little articles that hotmail wants me to click on. Usually they're pretty innocuous, stupid things. Today, however, one of them caught my eye - Love: 10 Crazy Scientific Facts. It's nothing thrilling or marvelous, but it's kinda neat to read.
The blog tastingmenu.com is rolling out their 2006 Independent Food Festival & Awards, and I for one am simply drooling. There are five days worth of awards - only two have been revealed so far.
I know that this is a blog linked from my school website, and because of that I have to be awfully careful about what I post here. My position as a teacher is not to sway my students toward or away from most issues (well, except toward the whole doing-homework-is-good issue), and as such, I tend to simply avoid most controversial topics so that I'm not seen as promoting one side or another.
Entertainment Weekly this week points out a couple of awesome videos from YouTube.com. The first and more entertaining is probably the combined performance from James Brown, Prince, and Michael Jackson - all at the peak of their pwers, sometime around 1984, I'm guessing. Seriously freakish and phenomenal video. The second is a clip of Beck performing "Clap Hands" with an orchestra of folks eating dinner while performing. Good stuff...
I've got some very minor connection to Orange County because Orange High School is the only school that's raised more money than Princeton High School in the past few years for Pasta for Pennies, so this morning's story on the Today Show caught my attention.
It seems so simple: lobster bites. Long John Silver's has added a new menu item "just in time for lent", as the press release says. It's a little cheap for lobster (like $3 instead of like $20), admittedly, so I assume that it's some sort of lobster bits that couldn't make it into high quality lobster for real restaurants - maybe a little worse for you, but there's nothing wrong with that. Little bits of lobster are still lobster, admittedly, just in a little smaller package. Right?
First off, I think my wife may gain about fifty pounds based merely on the newest Ben & Jerry's flavor. It's ice cream and beer - combined! Seriously, this could be very bad for her chances at the Flying Pig. For me, the Berried Treasure looks a lot better.
And even more impressive is a new game that is being promoted in this preview video. The game is called Spore and is one of the most impressive games I've ever seen. If you'd like some still pics, they're here. 
I love Wikipedia so very much.
So, you're in a store looking at the newest gadget or DVD or cd or whatever, and you're tempted to go ahead and drag it to the checkout. But is it any good? Well, you could leave the store, head home, log onto the internet or pick up a magazine and go through a bunch of reviews...or...you could snap a quick picture of the UPC and get instant feedback from a whole bunch of blogs. It's not a possibility just yet, but if these folks have their say, it will be within a year or so.
There are two sides to this story here...on one hand, I see good things in parents being able to help guide their children's eating habits...on the other hand, what will happen to the junk food industry's massive hold on the school market?...
Not that I'm endorsing this kind of behavior or anything, but it's kinda cool...
I teach at a high school that offers the International Baccalaureate (IB) program. It's not something that most folks are familiar with, but it's an impressive educational program. 
Turns out that Upper St. Clair HS - near Pittsburgh also has the IB program - or at least they had the program. The school's website describes themselves thusly...Welcome to the Upper St. Clair High School website. Three times recognized as a National Blue Ribbon School and named as a New American High School by the Federal Department of Education, Upper St. Clair High School is a four-year, comprehensive school with a strong emphasis on preparation for college.In their second controversial act since they came into office, the Upper St. Clair school board voted to cease their IB program.
We've not - that I know of, anyway - heard any such complaints or rumblings of removing the IB program from good ol' PHS, and I certainly hope such rumblings never come our way, and I do understand that in times of financial shortage, certain services have to be curtailed, and all...but...
I am amazed at what my students are able to accomplish that is often quite far outside the realm of anything that we're teaching them.
Apparently, the current administration falls down on a different side of the disclosure fence than do I."Every blue ribbon panel that has studied the performance of the U.S. defense establishment and intelligence community since September 11, 2001 has emphasized the need for less secrecy and greater transparency," said Aid. "This episode reveals an enduring culture of secrecy in the U.S. government and highlights the need to establish measures prohibiting future secret reclassification programs."But this has not deterred the reclassifiers.
Antonio Banderas blogs just for you...
Did a little good deed last night before the scheduling fair (standing in the gym, letting parents ask questions about what their lil' precious should take next year) and visited Roc-a-Fellas, an NYC-style pizza joint in Sharonville. Wandered there partially because I'd heard good things, but also partially because the Pasta for Pennies campaign has a deal going with them where 20% of any check between 4-8 and Thursday nights (the deal just ended last night), and as the co-coordinator, I tend to go to a bunch of those things as support.
From the Doug files - Chocolate Deities, a small company willing to mint your favorite God or god or goddess or religious symbol in white, milk, or dark chocolate. Plus, for some of the deities, they're willing to paint 'em in gold (or a few other colors) just to make worshiping that golden calf just a little easier.
Hidden Passageways offers the coolest addition to a house ever made. Specifically, I'm talking about animation #4 in the videos section.
If my previous posts about the grossness of huge burgers didn't turn you off from that kind of food, have a gander at SupersizedMeals.com ...complete with pictures of 15 lb hamburgers, 22-slice bacon sandwiches, and a link to the Whopperettes. All kinda sick...
So, Al Michaels was traded.
Michaels had been broadcasting football games for ABC, but ABC lost their Monday Night Football games to ESPN. ESPN, in turn, gave up the Sunday night games to NBC who wanted to have Michaels in the stable. So, ABC and NBC worked out a trade because Michaels was still under contract for ABC.
It appears that the Australian wizarding community has had a major foul-up. The UK newspaper The Register has located a flying car using Google Earth. They do go on to investigate further, getting ground-level pictures of the flying car launch site and proposing a few alternate explanations, none of which seem too plausible.
Here's a little video of Prince showing up the entire remaining alive Wilburys. Check it out...
I think Craig Ferguson is funnier, admittedly, and David Letterman just might be, too, but I think Jimmy Kimmel's been doing a pretty good job on the late night scene (from my limited views, admittedly)...And all three are clearly funnier than Jay Leno...he and his chin haven't done anything useful or funny since he was the Crimson Chin...
I'm always amazed at what you can do and find on the internet. Tonight, I was looking for a review of the Blue Traveler album which made me think of my cousin Aaron who introduced me to the Travelers a long time ago.
Somehow, I'm thinking that this is a joke, but I'm dorky enough that I just might try it over the weekend... my wife and I have, after all, two cell phones... and it shouldn't be too difficult to set up...
So, I've got a Dell Insipron 8600...it's a handy thing that I've had for a year and a half now... quality laptop with wireless something or other that lets me browse the web and blog (of course) throughout almosthe entire house (not the very front room, but considering the palatial size of the Dusch manse, that's not really a surprise)...
Admittedly, I'm not entirely sure of how long my battery can last, but anecdotally I know it's getting shorter and shorter...and while I didn't exactly use battery life as the deciding factor in choosing a laptop, I do care about not being fully tethered...
Kyle may not be doing it anymore, but I'm willing to keep banging away at the random songs from iTunes. Speaking of Kyle, by the by, he recommended an excellent cartoon from Salon.com this weekend - Tom the Dancing Bug. Good stuff...and now on to today's promised music...
Film parodies are becoming pretty simple to make and post to the web, and now that a lot of the web is browsed at broadband speed, people can post decent quality video files. Today's movie parody is titled Broke Mac Mountain and tells a touching story of two men passing the time...
Postings could become a little less frequent for the next few weeks, folks, because the Pasta for Pennies campaign is in full swing now (5K run this weekend is the next big project) and if we're going to raise $40,000, we're going to need to work at it (feel free to donate once the online donation's online - supposedly Monday of next week, by the way).
