Either CNN or Adrien Brody's attorney sucks at math

The only "D" I got in high school was for 12th grade calculus*.

Even today, I don't think the poor mark was because I was bad at calculus - which I'm sure I would have been - it was just that I literally slept through almost every class. But I had a good reason: At the beginning of my senior year, I knew that I was just months away from starting college, and I knew that college students often stay up until very late at night, and I reasoned that I should start, well, training for that particular aspect of college. Yes, I would train my body for those crazy late nights of college that were sure to come by just... staying awake until 1:30 or 2 a.m., as often as possible.

So every Monday through Thursday night, after I had finished practicing the violin and doing my homework (except for my calculus homework, of course), I'd watch the 11 o'clock news, and then the Tonight Show (this was in the pre-Leno days, when it wasn't awful), and then watch reruns of Benson and/or Cheers followed by as much as possible of the Letterman show. (Unlike other, normal cities, Baltimore in the 80s apparently couldn't handle going right from the Tonight Show to Letterman.)

That meant I was getting somewhere around four hours of sleep every weeknight. The remedy: A 48-minute power nap during calculus. The result: My beloved "D."

All of which is to say that I'm puzzled about the math in this hard-hitting CNN.com article.

The piece explains that actor Adrien Brody was to be paid $1.5 million for starring in a movie that nobody will ever see. It says that he has been paid $960,000 so far (which sounds pretty decent for a direct-to-DVD flick) and that Mr. Brody is still owed $640,000, which would seem to total up to $1.6 million - not $1.5 million. At least I think that's right - maybe there's some weird rule about adding dollar figures that I missed in calculus.

* Actually, it's possible I got a D in trigonometry, too. But there's no idiotic story behind that one.

Great moments in non sequiturs, Part 1

I'm hoping that you've noticed that SFTC has been on the downlow for the past few weeks.

I apologize for the lack of hilarious anecdotes and wry observations. Although, in fairness, none of you wrote in to ask if I was OK. If I were you, I'd have been worried about this sudden and unexpected online silence. "Oh no!" I might have thought to myself. "SFTC might have had his hands cut off by a combine in a tragic farming accident."

But I (overly dramatically) digress.

The real reasons for the hiatus were that I was unusually busy with my other kind of writing - the kind I get paid for - and that I promised that I wouldn't post again until I came up with a monumental blog post, a captivating story truly worthy of my triumphant return to blogging.

I have since reconsidered on that second point, in favor of "whatever the heck I could think of on Wednesday." So here it is:

My aunt is the queen of non sequiturs. Conversations often take odd left turns, making it an adventure to keep up. Emails often contain random mixtures of topics, often completely out of context. Like the one she sent last night.

It read: "Did u know Paula Abdul is Jewish? Guess where I am? xxoo "

I wrote back: "I didn't know that about Paula. I also don't know where you are, but given the setup, I'm guessing Paula Abdul's bat mitzvah."

It turned out she was just in Baltimore. But I was pretty close.

The National Gallery, Volume 2

About nine months ago*, I wowed and amazed you** with a photo-and-video scrapbook of my visit to Los Angeles' famed Wiltern for a rockin' good concert by The National. Saturday night, I returned for the first time since then. For a concert. A concert by The National. I'm nothing if not creative.

Further evidence of that creativity? Today's post will be a photo-and-video scrapbook of Saturday evening.

I haven't been to a whole lot of music venues in L.A. yet, but I've decided that the Wiltern is one of the best in town, thanks in part to its kick-ass marquee, which on Saturday, looked a lot like this:


Another thing I love about the theater is that the name is an amalgamation of WILshire Boulevard and WesTERN Avenue, which intersect near its entrance. The name would have been even catchier if the theater had been built where Jackson Street runs into Kass Avenue, but, sadly, whoever was building art deco theaters in L.A. in the early 1930s missed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. (Also, there's no Kass Avenue in Los Angeles, but whatever.)

The National mixed in several songs from its newest album, High Violet, including Bloodbuzz Ohio, which I especially like, and Conversation 16, which is a favorite of my exceptionally gorgeous wife.

Among its other wonderful qualities, Conversation 16 includes this rather snappy lyric:
I was afraid I'd eat your brains
I was afraid I'd eat your brains
Cause I'm evil
Cause I'm evil

And one of the highlights of the concert was hearing lead singer Matt Berninger explain the deeper meaning behind those words. "That song," he said, "is a metaphor for this one time that I ate a girl's brains while she was sleeping."

We in the audience assumed he was kidding, of course, and we got a good chuckle out of that metaphor.***

Another cool part of the night was meeting - in person! - my online friend Violette, a music connoisseur with whom I've been exchanging tweets since that first National concert last August. Violette has a great (and recently redesigned) music blog, which you should check out, so long as you finish reading this post first.

OK, enough with the words. How 'bout a few of my very favorite photos I took Saturday night, and a couple of videos that I might or might not have shot with my digital camera, depending on whether I needed the band's express written consent to videotape anything ...

The stills

If you were in a band, you'd put this on an album cover, right?








My favorite picture I've taken in a really really long time.

Motion & Sound

Start A War


Mistaken For Strangers

The band's remaining 2010 tour dates, you ask? Right here.

* Tip for all of you aspiring writers out there: This strikes me as a potentially dramatic way to start any story not involving the birth of a child.
** Well, two or three of you.
*** For more metaphor-inspired hilarity, please don't hesitate to read two other recent SFTC posts, this one and this one.

Best in show

Without a doubt, the best part of the Oscars telecast - better than the crazy lady in the purple tablecloth channeling Kanye, better than RDJr. channeling Chris Kattan (sartorially, anyway), better than Sandra Bullock's best-acceptance-of-the-night, better even than Christophe Waltz's invention of the word "uber-bingo" - was a commercial.

Specifically, a commercial for My New Favorite TV Show, Modern Family. Because nothing during the Academy Award ceremony was better than watching Sofia Vergara blurt out, "Cloudy with a chance of the meatballs!"

In case you missed it:

PC squared: Phil Collins and the evolution of politcal correctness

Occasionally - usually while I'm supposed to be doing something productive - I wonder whether we're all way, way, way more politically correct than we were when I was a kid or it's that I've just been listening to Bill Maher too much.

This afternoon, I think I answered my own question, thanks to, of all people, Phil Collins. (Well, Phil Collins and the other guys who were in Genesis after Peter Gabriel left.)


Mike, Phil and Tony in matching sombreros.

And I'm pretty sure my answer is, that, Yes, PC has reached levels we couldn't have imagined in 1983, which is the year Genesis released a song called Illegal Alien. Because today, it's equally impossible to imagine a Top 40 music act recording a song and appearing in a video, complete with sombreros and tequila and vaguely Mexican facial hair, like this one. Or, if they did those things, not getting absolutely slammed for it.

A slightly related thought: I wonder if California could find a way to use this song as a PSA.

But I sent you away, Oh, Grammy

The Grammys have sort of sucked since at least 1967, when Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was beat out for the Best Performance By a Vocal Group award by that timeless Fifth Dimension masterpiece, Up Up and Away.

The awards' suckiness was reconfirmed the year that Lionel Richie won 394 awards and kept saying "Outrageous!" every trip up to the podium, and more recently when Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot wasn't even nominated.

But this? This is the last straw.*

A quick side note:** As I was researching tonight's post, I came across the roster of Best New Artist winners and nominees. And I guess the Academy sometimes gets those awards right. For instance, I don't really care about Marc Cohn's music that much, but the mere fact that he beat out Boyz II Men, C+C Music Factory and Color Me Badd is somewhat redeeming. (On the other hand, if you're Marc Cohn, do you keep that Grammy hidden so you can avoid having to answer the question, "So, who else was nominated that year?")

Perhaps the strangest two-year stretch in Best New Artist history was 1970 and 1971.

1970 Winner: Crosby, Stills & Nash ... Nominees: Chicago, Led Zeppelin, Oliver, The Neon Philharmonic
1971 Winner: The Carpenters ... Nominees: Elton John, Melba Moore, Anne Murray, The Partridge Family

Has ever the musical tide turned so dramatically for the worse? I'm a big fan of early '70s Elton John, so his nomination in '71 seems warranted, but otherwise that 1971 list is astonishing - particularly coming on the heels of a year in which CS&N, Chicago and Zeppelin were contenders - isn't it? Plus, wouldn't you have guessed that Elton would have won if for no other reason than The Carpenters, Murray and the Partridges would have split the ballots coming from the fluff-pop voting bloc?

* In case you missed it, I really hate Kings of Leon.
** It turns out the quick side note is longer than the main subject of today's post. These things happen.

I'll take "No shot in hell" for $400, Alex

I just took the online test to try qualifying for a Jeopardy audition. How'd I do?

Well, let's just say you probably won't see me standing behind a video-monitor-equipped podium, with a signaling device in hand, asking Alex Trebek questions like, "What is the Venus de Milo?" (er, actually, I mean this one) or, "Where is Lake Titicaca?" anytime in 2010.

I think I acquitted myself fairly well, but in the immediate aftermath of the 50-question test (15 seconds to answer each one), the only thing I'm confident of is that I've got almost no chance to make it to the next round. I'd guess I got about two-thirds correct, but I can think of too many I flubbed. For better or worse, the website doesn't recap which ones you got right or wrong, or even give a score, and I don't even know if there's a preset minimum number of correct responses to qualify for the next round, but... eh.

A few quick highlights and lowlights from the test:

• The first question was about a Dr. Seuss character - child's play! was my first thought - who has some thing or other to do with trees. Argh! Pretty sure that ruled out The Cat, Horton and Sam He Is, and for the life of me, I couldn't think of The Lorax.
• My mom always used to tell me I should read more books, and although I usually do alright on trivia questions about novels, even when I haven't read them, tests like this are pain-in-the-ass reminders that my mom was probably right. One question referred to a Faulkner novel with a title that repeats the same word twice. As time ran out, "Absalom, Absalom" came to mind, but literally only because it was the one two-repeated-words title I could think of. Except that I was completely sure it wasn't a Faulkner work, so I left that one blank. Um, oops.
• I always like ending on a high note, so I was glad that the last question was about a pro tennis player born in Basel in 1981. A cinch for an incurable sports fan.
• My wildest guess that actually worked came on a question about a Supreme Court justice who, from 1801 to 1804, wrote a biography of George Washington. Thought process: "Marshall sounds like an early 19th century judge kind of a name.... There was another Marshall besides Thurgood, right?... Oh, whatever, I'll go with Marshall."
• ZenMom is going to absolutely murderize me for missing the question that sought the name of the TV show whose theme song includes the line "Our whole universe was in a hot dense state" and is performed by the Barenaked Ladies. I knew it was "that show with three science dorks and a cute chick that I watched once and swore never to watch again," but I think the judges were probably looking for The Big Bang Theory.
• I did, however, guess right on another pop culture question, figuring that it was Penelope Cruz who played "neither Vicky nor Cristina, but Maria Elena in Vicky Cristina Barcelona."
• I got the one about Ben Franklin's 1784 invention that was probably a result of his advancing age and increasing trouble reading - bifocals - and I dug back into the recesses of my 11th grade chemistry knowledge and remembered that the chemical symbol for potassium was K. (Fist bump!)
• The one that really fried my brain was a geography question having something to with Albania and a large lake and some peninsula. (Possibly they were going for the Balkan Peninsula - I don't know.) I couldn't even discern the question what the question was asking because as I was reading it, all I could hear was a hilarious scene from a 1985 Cheers episode, with Coach and Sam studying for Sam's GED exam by singing, "Albania, Albania. You border on the Adriatic."

Go figure. Normally, my vast knowledge of Cheers dialogue comes in handy in everyday situations, but this time it was merely a distraction. Maybe if I had been reading Faulkner in 1985 instead of watching Cheers, I would have gotten two more questions correct. Well, at least my mom can say she told me so.

Castle burger

If you've got a sec, follow me over to World's Best Burger, where I'm doing a mini-rant about an article I just read about beautiful European castles.

Be sure to leave comments, too, because if I get enough traffic over there, I'm in line to win a castle of my own.*

* Maybe.

Putting lipstick on a Fox

It simply cannot be a coincidence that I became aware of these two news headlines today, and that I learned of them in the same sequence in which I'm presenting them to you.

First, from MSNBC.com (courtesy of the world's most wonderful wife):
Sarah Palin gets deal as Fox commentator*

And then, from the news site I love to hate, CNN.com:
Too much TV may mean earlier death

Anyone else thinking we have the cause and effect here?

* The article's subhead is, purportedly, a quote from Palin: "It's wonderful to be a part of a place that so values fair and balanced news." Yes, I get that she cleverly incorporated the network's mantra. But when does Fox give up that joke? I'm going to go work at Coca-Cola and tell people that it's wonderful to be a part of place that never sells any kind of liquid that contains sugar, chemicals and bubbles.

Endorsement burger

It's not that I actually care that St. John, the women's clothing brand - er, excuse me, luxury knitwear brand - dropped Angelina Jolie as its lead endorser. Truly, I don't. But I did think I'd be able to get a blog post out of it. And, so, I have.

The brilliance is just a click away, on World's Best Burger. (Warning: Unveils my possibly half-baked Tiger-Angelina Endorsement-ending Tryst Theory.)

Weather forecast courtesy of that sensei from Karate Kid

Once in a while during the months of October, November, December, January, February and March - and occasionally April - I like to check in on the weather conditions in my former hometown of Chicago and gloat a little bit. (It's possible that I've blogged about this once before, like, say here.)

This probably makes me a terrible person, but being able to gloat about weather is one of the perks of living in Southern California, and I'm someone who likes to take advantage of the perks afforded to me.

I've been hearing about snow and arctic temperatures in the Midwest, so I thought today would be a good day to visit the Chicago Sun-Times website. I was not disappointed - and mostly because it seems that the two-word weather summary on the site's home page was written by the sensei from Karate Kid. (Did you know? The character's name was John Kreese! Thanks, imdb!)

Before I get to the forecast itself, please refresh your memory by reliving this relevant Karate Kid dialogue:

That's Martin Kove, left, as the immortal John Kreese.

Kreese: What do we study here?
Highly pumped up dojo students: The way of the fist, sir!

Kreese: And what is that way?
Students: Strike first, strike hard, no mercy!

Kreese: I can't hear you.
Students: Strike first, strike hard, no mercy!

Which brings me to the Chicagoland forecast synopsis that appeared on the Sun-Times banner this morning:

End of the aughts, Part 2

If you were here yesterday, you were wowed, amazed and possibly blown away by Part 1 of my end-of-the-decade wrap-up chat with Daddy Geek Boy. And you're dying to catch the rest of the conversation in Part 2.

Well, this is your lucky day. Because Part 2 - which, as I mentioned, is way more interesting - is now up on Daddy Geek Boy. So check it out. And then take care of one of your 2010 new year's resolutions by signing up on his site to become a DGB follower. (What? That wasn't one of your resolutions? It should be.)

If you weren't here yesterday, you should should stop what you're doing right now and go read Part 1 immediately. Seriously. Failing to do so would be like watching Step Up 2: The Streets without first seeing Step Up.* That is, you really might not understand the sequel.

End of the aughts: A deep conversation with my (other) favorite blogger

You might have heard that we're rapidly approaching the end of a decade.

To mark this momentous occasion, I decided to... um... blog about it. Which sounds very predictable, but you're in luck, because I decided to blog about it in the form of a witty, snappy and enlightening conversation with Daddy Geek Boy.

We talked music, movies, politics and more. We laughed, we cried. And we did it all on instant messenger, which made it incredibly easy to transpose. I'm nothing if not brutally efficient.

Part 1 follows; you can read the equally amazing conclusion on his site on Tuesday.

DGB: At the end of every year, there are all of these recaps. And since we're at the end of a decade, the pressure to put a fine point on it all is huge. But I've been thinking about what we didn't have 10 years ago.

SFTC: Well, right now, I'm watching the Ravens game on TV, and checking Twitter and email in between our instant messages.

DGB: That's something right there - how much multitasking did you do 10 years ago?

SFTC: A little, I guess, but it's nothing like now when I'm checking Twitter, blogs, email, Facebook and whatever else at work and at home. How about you?

DGB: Yeah, the way I communicate with people is completely different. How are the Ravens doing?

SFTC: Ravens were down 17-0, are still trailing, but now back in the game at 17-14. You mostly don't follow sports, right?

DGB: I don't. Nothing against sports. I really like them. But I feel I don't have the time to really devote to them. I guess I could call myself a Redskins fan, if I kept up with football. But from what I gather, this season it wouldn't really matter.

SFTC: You're right about the Skins. I have to say it's hard for me to imagine doing everything I do now, and then adding two children to the mix, and having time to do anything else - like watching sports - so working parents have my immense admiration.

DGB: If it's a choice of sports over movies, I'm going to have to pick movies. But since we're talking about sports: What events capture the '00s in sports for you?

SFTC: You know, none of my favorite teams won championships, so the most memorable sports events for me were the ones I got to see up close and in person thanks to my job. (Not the same job I have now.) I went as a reporter to the NBA All-Star Game in Houston and the MLB All-Star Game in Detroit. And although I'm not a big NASCAR fan, the coolest experience of all was getting a ride in a stock car that was driven by Rusty Wallace... on the day before the Daytona 500 at the Daytona Speedway. It was unreal.

DGB: OK, you rode in a stock car? Sports fan or not, that's really cool right there. For a lot of my friends, the Red Sox winning the World Series will go down as their favorite moment this decade.

SFTC: Yeah, the Sox win was amazing - I was hoping the Cubs could follow suit in the next few years, but they might never win.

One of the things that I've delved into on SFTC is the too-good-to-be-true political scandals. I know you don't really get into those on DGB, but did you have any, um, favorites of the 2000s?

DGB: The whole Larry Craig thing was the first to jump in my head. For the sheer ridiculousness of it, mixed with a dash of pathetic. How about you?

SFTC: Maybe because I spent so much of my life in Chicago, I got a special thrill out of the Blagojevich incident. Just his arrogance, his complete disregard for the law, the audaciousness of it. I got to see a large part of his rise to prominence and it was amazing how swiftly he just fell apart.

DGB: This has been the decade where I've started to pay attention to politics. But every time I get sucked in, I get turned off just as quickly. It's sad to admit this, but it feeds my pessimistic side.

SFTC: Well, there was a long stretch last year where it was interesting without being terrible. It was nice to be able to follow it and be interested for reasons that weren't negative.

DGB: True. I was never so involved as I was during the election. But I think the same thing - it seems like a never-ending story of greed and corruption and ego and inefficiency, and it's hard to stay tuned in. It's all so contentious and nasty. Though I feel like that's something that's developed over the past handful of years. I feel like as a nation after 9/11 we were told that it wasn't okay to have dissenting opinions.

SFTC: Speaking of which, where were you when you first heard about the 9/11 attacks?

DGB: I was in the gym. Which is crazy to think about now because I've become such a sloth. But I was working out with a trainer, and we watched it go down on the monitors in the gym. We finished the workout, because frankly we didn't know what else to do. I came home and spent the rest of the day crying on the couch with the woman who would become WW™.

SFTC: That seems practical. (The gym part.)

DGB: How about you?

SFTC: A woman who lived in my building in Chicago said something about it to me while I was on the elevator that morning. But she brought it up by asking just, "Did you hear?" I assumed she was talking about Michael Jordan's return to the NBA from his second retirement, because that had been the big news on SportsCenter the night before - that he was about to come back. So I told her that I'd heard about Jordan, and she said, "No, a plane flew into the World Trade Center." Of course at that time, we obviously assumed it was just a bad accident. The Sears Tower is visible from the building where I lived in Chicago, and as I was walking to work that morning, I kept looking up at the Sears Tower and thinking what it would look like for a jet to fly into the top of that building. Then, spent most of the day at work just watching it on TV.

DGB: You know, I flew four days after the attack?

SFTC: You did!?! Why? Where? What did FWW™ think?

DGB: I was living in L.A. and my best friend was getting married that weekend in Philly. There was no way I couldn't be there. I got lucky and when they reopened the airports, I got a seat on a flight. FWW™ was really nervous about it. She said that's what made her realize she loved me. Oddly, I wasn't nervous.

SFTC: Wow. I'm impressed. Were you drinking heavily?

DGB: The odds of something happening again so soon were astronomical. And it really did bring people together. Everybody huddled together in the airport bar and just talked to each other. I was so focused on being there for my friend. That wedding, by the way, was one of the best I've ever been to. It was such a catharsis.

Don't forget: Part 2 - which I promise you'll find way more interesting - is on Daddy Geek Boy tomorrow! We talk Wilco and Harry Potter and reveal how DGB scored a wife-approved absence on Valentine's Day. Don't miss it.

Fighting impotence

I'm writing today's headline against my better judgment. I thought it would be a nice way to introduce today's SFTC Quiz!*

Ready? OK!

Today's headline, "Fighting impotence" is...
(a) a funny oxymoron, sort of like the name of the Dodge Ram. (Did the geniuses who came up with this name want you to dodge things or ram into them? If I had one of those trucks, I'd constantly be wondering about the proper driving strategy.)

(b) almost guaranteed to result in a steady stream of Viagra and/or Cialis ads over there in the right sidebar for a few days.

(c) refers to my impression of today's Story-That-Doesn't-Quite-Seem-To-Add-Up from my favorite online news source**, CNN.com.

In case CNN.com edits the headline before you get there, here's what it says at 1 a.m.*** on December 16: "800,000 H1N1 vaccine doses for young children recalled; safety not a concern."

Yeah, sure.

Makes sense - I mean, companies recall hundreds of thousands of their products for their lack of impending danger all the time. If anything, according to the story, the vaccine doses might have been too safe - the pharmaceutical company claims they were 12 percent less potent than they were supposed to be. Oh. Kay.

I guess it's reassuring that the CDC says all kids who have received the vaccine are safe. But still, I'm taking a wild guess that the CDC spokesman's comment - that parents should do "absolutely nothing" - might not exactly mollify parents of vaccinated kids all across our great land. Parents are funny like that.

Speaking of the CDC, its full name was changed 17 years ago to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - the last two words added to the agency's moniker - but the initialism remained "CDC." If I were one of the scientists who worked on the "and Prevention" stuff there, I would be pretty pissed. It's like their contributions don't even count.

I bet it's why these vaccines are so weak.

--

If you have any interest whatsoever in good music, I'd like to point out that an SFTC emerging favorite, Amy Cook, is offering a free download of "Hotel Lights," a tune from her forthcoming album, over here on her website. Consider it a holiday gift from your sixth-favorite blog.

--

Oh, the answer to the quiz? I guess it's (d), all of the above. Which you probably already figured out.

* Since when do we do quizzes around here?
** Not really "favorite," so much as it is the most useful for this blog, on account of its frequently questionable news judgment.
*** I really need to go to sleep.

The Good Wife

Wowie. Anyone else see this news coming?

OK, so we all saw it coming. Actually, I think it's nice that as 2009 comes to an end, we all get some closure on one of the juicier adultery stories of the year.

I have - for your comfort and convenience - decided that I didn't need to add my two cents about that golfer who apparently cheated on his gorgeous Swedish wife. I'm alluding to it here only to pay a compliment to the soon-to-be-former Mrs. Sanford: Very smart media strategy to announce your impending divorce from a philandering, high-profile husband during Tigergate.

Tartlet

There's an episode of Friends* in which Monica, auditioning for a job as a chef, cooks several dishes for a very stoned restaurateur, played by Jon Lovitz. When Monica tells him that she's going to be serving tartlets, he responds by very stoned-ishly** repeating the word back to her:

"Tartlet. [pause] Tartlet. [pause] Tartlet," and then adding, "The word has lost all meaning."

Which, thanks to Barbara Walters, is now exactly how I feel about the word "fascinating." You know, because of this.

Come to think of it, tartlet is about right.

* I guess this is the week in which I draw most of my inspiration from long-gone NBC sitcoms.
** Suggestions for a better adverb, anyone?

New feature! Say It, Sajak

Welcome to the first installment of a feature that I hope will be a regular part of SFTC for years to come*. I'm calling it Say It, Sajak!

In each exciting webisode, we'll recap something really funny that game show host extraordinaire Pat Sajak said during a recent Wheel of Fortune telecast. Today's quote, for example, was so freaking hilarious when it aired, that the world's most beautiful wife and I nearly spit out our beverages, in tandem, all over the living room floor.**

One metaphysically challenging aspect of this feature is that although I obviously am sitting in front of a computer screen, typing about things Sajak said on the air, you will never get me to admit that I watch Wheel of Fortune, much less that I watch it an average of 3.5 nights a week.

One ground rule for Say It, Sajak: Each entry will be presented without any explanation. Which could possibly mean that the only way you'll agree that it's rip-roaringly funny is that you'll just have to trust me. Oh, and since I'm doing this by memory, the quote might not be totally, 100 percent accurate. Other than that, I think this is going to be an awesome idea.

Today's Say It, Sajak! Quote of the Day is... "Somewhere in Nashville, someone is getting ready to massage chickens!"

See what I mean?

* Upon further reflection, I sort of hope this is the one and only installment.
** This is actually true.

Uneasy lies the head

If you're thinking about auditioning for American Idol or whatever the equivalent show is in England*, I have some important advice.

If you make it to the finals, there will be physical consequences. There's indisputable proof that one of the unfortunate results of shooting to stardom on a nationally televised singing contest is that your head gets bigger. I mean, it swells to the point that your neck alone is simply unable to hold it up.

Visual evidence comes in the form of the covers of the latest CDs by two recent singing sensations. Witness:


(Susan Boyle, from whatever that British show is)

I guess the only good news is that in some cases, singers only need one hand (usually the right) to keep their heads from falling over in all of their pop-star glory.


(Adam Lambert, on a cover that could only have been designed in the early 1980s)

It even applies to the previous generation of Idols.


(Carrie Underwood, going with the palm)

Apparently, Carrie Underwood is one of the fortunate ones, able to provide adequate head support with but a single hand. I assume she had exercises - like maybe taking a Louisville Slugger to both head lights and slashing holes in in all four tires - that helped her avoid the dreaded Boyle two-handed lift.

* I think it's Ye Olde British Idole, but I'm too lazy to look it up.

My aim is true

(Headline inspired by lyrics from this classic song by my close, personal friend, Elvis Costello*.)

Quick post to kick off your weekend: It seems that the fine men and women of our armed forces are, once and for all, trying to put an end to those hi-larious Polish jokes.

Because if you're from a country that is "accidentally" firing a "machine gun" (OK, so the quotes around machine gun weren't really necessary) into a port city of a country that's not at war with you, you might be from one of the stupider countries on the planet.

What was this guy doing, Windexing his M240 while casually waving it around the Lido Deck?

I'm no munitions expert** but wouldn't you think the Navy has safeguards that would prevent a weapon from being discharged in the general direction of a foreign country while that weapon is being cleaned? Like, I don't, know... taking out the bullets first?

Actually, this incident reminds me of one other outstanding tune.

U-S-A! U-S-A!

* Elvis might characterize our relationship somewhat differently.
** Despite persistent rumors to the contrary.

The Squid and the Pirate

Several months ago, I boldly proclaimed that we were clearly in the midst of the Decade of the Pirate, what with all of the stories about buccaneers taking over cargo ships on the high seas. Not to mention the Johnny Depp movies. And Alan Tudyk's character in Dodgeball.

A few weeks later, I proclaimed - no less boldly - that I had proclaimed too soon because it then appeared that this actually was shaping up to be the Decade of the Octopus. (Virtually irrefutable proof here and here.)

And then ... silence.

Pirates and octopi seemingly had fallen off of the radar. Fewer pirate sightings was, I'm sure, good news for those who were responsible for traveling the highly prized Somali Coast route. But the sudden lack of information about eight-armed sea creatures was a troubling development for SFTC because, back in May, I promised you that this blog would be "The source you can rely on for the latest in octopus news."

Thankfully - for me, if not for sailors - pirates are back in the headlines. Unfortunately - for the pirates, at least - the latest attack went a little awry. Instead of storming a cargo ship, as they had planned, they (oopsie!) mistakenly attacked a French military vessel. Now, I don't know much about pirating, but I'm guessing one of the first rules is not to attack a boat on which everyone is armed and has military training.

Even if they are French.

And although I haven't read too much about octopi lately, squid news is close enough, right? OK, good. Because Yahoo News recently ran this piece about scientists accidentally discovering a 105-pound giant squid. (By the way, for a 105 pound mass of future sushi, isn't the word "giant" redundant?)

I especially liked that the writer points out that the discovery reminds us "how little is known about life in the deep waters of the Gulf." Perhaps that's because researchers don't really want to mess with the huge freakin' killer squid living down there.