Friday, February 03, 2006

I DO LOVE MY COMICS!

Today in The Boondocks comic strip we have Huey putting Lucy Van Pelt into his "hate book," because keeps pulling away the football, when Charlie Brown tries to kick it. Lucy and Charlie Brown are characters in a different comic strip, Peanuts, of course. What made this more amusing than it would have was that The Boondocks happened to be printed right below Peanuts in my Newsday. Too bad Charlie Brown and Lucy weren't in todays strip.

I love it when one comic strip starts referencing another, like they're in their own little world. There was a huge example of this last year, when they all celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Blondie comic strip. Characters in many other strips started talking about going to the anniversary party weeks before. Closer to the date they started appearing in each others strips, getting together for the journey, and finally on the big day they all showed up in Blondie.

I do love my comics. I switched from the New York Times to Newsday when the latter came into New York City with the slogan "Truth, Justice and the Comics." The Times has always been too stuffy to run comics--though that hasn't been a problem for the Washington Post, its closest competitor as "the newspaper of record."

Newsday has cut back on its comics over the years. It used to run three pages of them each day, and now it's only two, minus room for its "Kidsday" articles for/by children. So they've deleted a number of strips, and squished the remaining ones into a much smaller area. They have kept some of the deleted ones on their website, so I still follow one or two there, and there's a couple I find elsewhere on the internet. I sure wish the writer of Helen, Sweetheart of the Internet would return from "sabbatical," though.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

WEB SEARCH OF THE DAY

little girl lesbians wearing pantyhose
You think this is what the Bush administration was looking for in their fishing expedition?

At least my blog was down at number 70 on this one. Which means this guy (I'm assuming) probably looked at a lot of sites before he got to mine. I guess there isn't much more to do in Columbus, Ohio than there is in Dubai.

LET'S SEE HOW LONG THIS ONE LASTS

Rep. Boehner Elected House Majority Leader
The Republicans have come up with a replacement for Tom DeLay, who's a little preoccupied fighting off some felony charges. This guy's supposed to be "clean." We'll see.

LISA JACKSON LIVE MONDAY!








I found out last night that Lisa Jackson + Girl Friday are playing every Monday in February at Arlene's Grocery. It's even free!

Lisa rocks! I'll be there Monday, even if I have to go in the skirt suit I'll be wearing to make a presentation to the New York County Lawyers Assn board about endorsing the Gender Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA).

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

WEB SEARCH OF THE DAY

Somebody in Canada was looking for info on "duties on accordian" and got my blog. They had to go all the way to page 7 to reach me.

I'M SO OUT OF IT

The dating scene, that is.

In today's Newsday their "Survival Guide" features a story on "Eye Gazing." This is a new way for singles to meet. You get a roomful together, and each person gets 3 minutes to stare into the eyes of each person of the opposite sex--no talking (and presumably no touching) allowed. (There was no mention of whether there's a same sex version.) At the end people decide who they want to meet up with, and if two people want to meet each other, contact information is given.

One phrase in the article, er, caught my eye. It contrasted eye gazing to "traditional speed dating." Traditional? I've been out of the dating scene for nearly two decades now. Has speed dating been around so long it's traditional?

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

NON-SURPRISE HEADLINE OF THE DAY

Bush Skips Complex Realities in Address

A NEW EYE-OPENER

In my Fresh Direct delivery last weekend I got a free sample of Tab Energy, the Coca-Cola Company's attempt to market a Red Bull-like "energy drink" to young women. Well, even though I'm not young, and only part woman, I like it.

I first saw this advertised on New Year's Eve, on the Dick Clark broadcast. Actually, it was more of a product placement. There was a big sign for it in the background, and people were drinking it at tables behind the dancers, as I remember. I wondered what it was. Tab has been around since 1963, and I've been a fan since then. Until they came up with Diet Coke with Lime, it was my favorite--I'd drink several cans a day. Now, I just drink one Tab in the morning--somehow, it's a better eye-opener than the Diet Coke.

It should be noted that about the only thing Tab Energy and Tab have in common is the name and the color of the can. Tab Energy isn't even a cola, and it's not quite calorie-free: there are 5 per can. And the can is different: it's the tall, skinny 10.5 ounce energy drink size, not the conventional 12 ounce can. But it's still pink.

And the drink is pink, too!

It's got some ginseng in it, and it's sweetened by sucralose, not the saccharin-aspartame combination of regular Tab. I like the taste.

So I'm going to order some more. I see that it's not cheap: $1.75 per can--so I think I'll limit myself to having it as my wake-up drink. I think it's got more than enough caffeine to do the job.

WHERE WERE THE FLYING DONKEYS?

Last Thursday some friends from CDI and I went to see a performance of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Another member in our group, Little Rita, was in it, so we were anxious to see her perform.

I had seen productions of A Midsummer's Night Dream the last two years: one at the Williamstown Theater Festival in the summer of 2004, and one done by the Vienna Marionettes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art just a few weeks ago. I wondered how this one would compare.

The publicity for the play promised "flying donkeys, bewildered lovers and warring fairies." The latter two are certainly in Shakespeare's script, but flying donkeys? All Shakespeare had was one person transformed into an ass, who remained quite firmly planted on the ground, as best as I can remember. And I'm pretty sure Shakespeare did not include an onstage oompah band either--though the audience was promised that also, plus a cast of 23. It all sounded like a whole lot of fun.

We cabbed up to the McGinn Cazale Theatre at 76th and Broadway, an ironic location for an off-off-Broadway production (do two "off"s make an "on"? Not in the theater). Off-off-Broadway shows must have fewer than 100 seats, and they don't have to follow various union rules--like the rule requiring the actors to be paid. We got there early, bought our tickets, and waited for them to allow us in to the seats. Come to think of it, we didn't get tickets, we just got programs.

After a bit a guy wearing a San Francisco Mime Troupe T-shirt opened the door and let us in, checking to make sure we all had programs. I hadn't heard anything of the San Francisco Mime Troupe since my college days. I guess they're still around.

We went in and claimed seats near the front of the stadium-seated theater. We looked at the set, with the advertised 5'X10' crash mat--a foam rubberish thing about 30" high like they use for high jumpers to land on. Up high on the right was a tiny area for the musicians, with an upright piano. I was very glad I had worn a thick sweater with an attached fuzzy scarf--the theater was very cold. It didn't warm up much as the rest of the audience arrived, maybe a couple dozen people. So the audience and the cast were about the same size.

The musicians (weirdly costumed) warmed up and tuned. Eventually the guy in the Mime Troupe t-shirt took the stage and did the cell phone announcement, and the play began. Things went from weird to weirder. They started with an extended battle with wooden weapons between Theseus and Hippolyta. Shakespeare's script was not exactly adhered to, but it was close--if anything the action was clearer.

The publicity promised a "lavender Lysander"--by which they meant lesbian. Lysander was played by a woman. I really wondered why they bothered. Outside of changing a pronoun here or there, everything was played straight--literally. It soon became clear that Lysander being a woman did not really change anything in the play.

When the fairies arrived things really got interesting. They jumped down and landed on the crash pad. One did back flips both off a wall and straight from the floor. He flew all over the place, doing a somersault in the air before bouncing off the crash pad.

There was more gender-bending when it came to the commoners who would be putting on "Pyramus and Thisby," the play-within-a-play done in honor of Theseus' and Hippolyta's wedding: four of the six were played by women--though not Flute, who would be Thisby, the female lead.

The play took its course, with one intermission. Things got very silly with the play-within-the-play. The woman playing Snout, did the part of the wall upside-down--she did a headstand, with Pyramus and Thisby conversing, etc. between her extremely long legs. And when they got to the line of Thisby's when she attempts to kiss Pyramus through the chink in the wall, and says "I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all," looking down at Snout's crotch--well, you get the picture.

The whole thing was very enjoyable. The oompah band musical accompaniment was nice, adding just the right note of weirdness to the proceedings. The performances were very good--particularly Sara Moore's clownish Bottom (she's been in San Francisco’s Pickle Family Circus). She hammed it up perfectly--and got do a very realistic sex scene with Titania up in a hammock-thing, so only their heads and maybe their feet were visible. However, the hammock sure moved, so the audience knew very well what they were doing.

But even as an ass, Bottom did not fly. She did a little somersault off the hammock on to the pad just below, but I think that was it--certainly not the flying donkeys I was expecting. Oh, well.

It was all a lot of fun. Someone remarked that Shakespeare must be rolling over in his grave. I disagreed. Shakespeare wrote a comedy, to make people laugh, and he would probably be laughing to this production right along with the rest of us.

We waited in the lobby for Rita, and then we went down with her to get something to eat. She explained that we didn't get the full musical experience, because the flute and clarinet that are usually used were stolen since the previous performance. I had thought that the instrumentation was a bit weirder than it needed to be, but they covered the missing ones on the piano, I think--it wasn't bad.

We got some dinner at Nick's, a little place across Broadway that specializes in all sorts of hamburgers. I had an ostrichburger, with sweet potato fries. Yum.

But I still wish there had been flying donkeys.

Monday, January 30, 2006

NOT THAT I'M COMPLAINING

It's 62 degrees right now. In New York City. In January.

NO FUN IN AUSTRALIAN SCHOOLS ALLOWED

CANBERRA (Reuters) - An Australian state plans to ban students from wearing denim because it is linked with having a good time.

"It is associated with weekend wear, with recreational time. It's just unacceptable at schools and we are trying to lift the standards," a spokesman for Western Australia state Education Minister Ljiljanna Ravlich said.

The ban on denim in Western Australia's secondary schools will be imposed from 2007.

Sunday, January 29, 2006

VARIATIONS ON A (SPAM) THEME IV

Assured dates at the moment?
Assured dates currently!
Assured hookups nowadays?
Assured meetings at the moment?
Assured meetups nowadays
Ensured dates currently?
Ensured dates promptly
Ensured hookups promptly?
Ensured meetings nowadays!
Guaranteed dates at present
Guaranteed hookups now
Guaranteed hookups nowadays?
Guaranteed meetings promptly
Guaranteed meetings right away?
Guaranteed meetups right away
Warranted dates currently?
Warranted dates at the moment!
Warranted hookups nowadays?
Warranted hookups right away
Warranted meetings at present
Warranted meetings now

If you like this sort of, er, inventiveness see my previous installments, starting with this one. I update them (and this one) continually, as more examples arrive.

CSI: FACT OR FICTION III

In CSI: FACT OR FICTION II I posted a lnk to an AP article on how television crime shows like CSI are influencing juries. Now they have one on how the shows are educating real life murderers also.