Saturday, September 22, 2007

A Saturday Evening Thought

Do you get the feeling that Rudy Giuliani and John McCain both wish they'd switched to the Democratic Party long enough ago to be able to now be running for that party's presidential nomination? It sure would be easier than moonwalking away from every position you have that differs from the G.O.P. base.

• Posted at 10:07 PM · LINK

Briefly...

Thanks to the half-a-hundred people who volunteered scans of Silver Star #1 and Captain Glory #1. I have what I need there. Still need Fantastic Four #1 and Young Romance #1. And please write before you scan. Thanks.

• Posted at 5:43 PM · LINK

Rebate and Switch

You people are sometimes very helpful. Not long ago, I mentioned here that I'd bought a Blackberry. A total stranger — I don't even know his or her name, only a handle — wrote and told me the following...

If you bought it through A.T.& T., you probably want to take advantage of their rebate offer. I work in rebate fulfillment for a sister company and I should warn you about a trick. They don't do this with everyone but they do it with some people. The rebate offer requires that you send in the bar code on the box that your Blackberry came in. A certain amount of rebate applications get returned with a form letter that says you did not include the bar code even though you did. By the time they get this letter, a lot of people have already thrown away the box and they no longer have a copy of the bar code to send it. So save a copy of the bar code until you receive the rebate.

I didn't think it would be necessary but because of the e-mail, I saved a copy of the bar code. Guess what I got in the mail today...

We thank you for your interest in the A.T.& T. Los Angeles/Bakersfield VISA Rebate offer. We regret that we are unable to process because your request did not meet the following requirements:

No IMEI bar-code was submitted. Please submit an original or copy of the IMEI bar-code. The bar-code is located on the end of the wireless device box or can be found on the back of the wireless device by removing the battery.

If I hadn't saved the copy, I wouldn't be completely outta luck since I could open the device and take out the battery...and I'm not sure how the code inside would copy. But they sure don't make it easy to get your rebate, do they? Now, I just have to allow another ten weeks for processing.

Thanks to whoever sent me that good advice.

• Posted at 3:53 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

This is a remarkable clip. It's four minutes and you need to know the following. Jerry Sanders is the Mayor of San Diego. He's a Republican and in the last election, his platform included opposition to gay marriage. He was about to come down to the moment when he would be vetoing a city council resolution in support of same-sex wedlock. Then, as happens an amazing percentage of the time when a prominent Conservative takes a stance against homosexual rights, he found out a little something about his own family and friends...

• Posted at 2:38 PM · LINK

Saturday Afternoon

George W. Bush wants another $200 billion for the Iraq War...and of course, he'll get it because Democrats are terrified of the 25% of America that still ostensibly backs this war and will blame Democrats for losing it.

Back when some members of the Bush Administration were saying how the war would pay for itself, I heard a caller on a talk radio show say, "This war is going to cost twice as much as the most pessimistic estimates." The host, who was for the war, called the guy an idiot and said it would be "chump change." As it turns out, it's going to be more like twenty times the highest estimates...so now we know who the chumps are.

Oh, well. Guess it's better than spending it on stupid things like health care for children. Hey, maybe we can pay more Blackwater contractors to fire indiscriminately and without provocation into crowds of civilians. That sure helps things.

• Posted at 2:30 PM · LINK

Dealer Bust

I like Blackjack and I used to like watching Blackjack tournaments on TV. The new season of The Ultimate Blackjack Tour has just begun airing on CBS and I think it'll be airing without me watching. What we have here is almost a textbook example of how to gimmick a show up with fancy lights, music and editing to the point of making it unwatchable.

In any kind of sporting event, you need at least a reasonable sensation of a live game; like you're witnessing something actually occurring before your eyes and anything can happen. Blackjack tourneys on TV do away with that. On the UBT, a single match consists of thirty hands of Blackjack and to get that all in to an hour, they have to skip over a lot of hands, summarizing them in fast forward. Imagine a baseball game where you come back from commercial and the announcer says, "While you were gone, they played the third, fourth and fifth innings and here's what happened."

Of course, they wouldn't do that. They wouldn't even air a baseball game that had been taped weeks earlier. But if you're going to do that, you need to at least try to preserve the sense that it's a real contest with an outcome that's in doubt. The shows they're airing are so tricked up with music and lights and computer graphics and breakneck cutting that they lose all sense of a real event. At times, I can't even follow who's playing who's ahead...or care.

The one nice thing about the UBT broadcasts on CBS is that they're almost wholly sponsored by ClubUBT, an online gaming site. In fact, the shows are like a glorified infomercial for ClubUBT, which I like because one of their spokespersons is my old pal, Carl "The Amazing" Ballantine. It's always nice to see Carl, even when he isn't doing his legendary magic act.

• Posted at 1:41 PM · LINK

Alice Ghostley, R.I.P.

Veteran comic actress Alice Ghostley is dead at the age of 81. Her film and television credits include just about everything.

That's almost not an exaggeration. Here's a link to her page at the Internet Movie Database and I doubt it's a tenth complete. She appeared in dozens of movies including The Graduate, Grease and To Kill a Mockingbird. She was a regular or semi-regular on more than two dozen TV series and guested on hundreds of others. Quite often, she was someone who was brought in when a show wasn't doing so well. One of my former writing partners used to refer to something he called The Alice Ghostley Rule. It was that you know a series is in trouble when they add Alice Ghostley to the cast.

That was no slam at her; quite the opposite. She was called in because she was guaranteed laughs and, they hoped, money in the bank. It usually didn't save the show but that was never her fault. She was always terrific.

And the I.M.D.B. listing doesn't even include her work on the stage. She won a Tony in 1965 and had been nominated before that. But somewhere in the I.M.D.B., they do mention a cartoon series where I directed her. Let me tell you — not that it'll do you any good now — how you "direct" Alice Ghostley. You hand Alice Ghostley the script and then you let her just be Alice Ghostley. It was always fine.

Alice was much-loved by her peers...and imitated. Paul Lynde used to freely admit that he copped much (sometimes, he said all) of his comic delivery from the lovely Ghostley. They both got famous appearing in the legendary revue, Leonard Sillman's New Faces of 1952. I had the best and easiest time working with her. She was just so good at being Alice Ghostley.

Here's a link to the L.A. Times obit and here's a link to the N.Y. Times obit.

• Posted at 9:42 AM · LINK

Saturday Morning Possum Blogging

This charming fella was out on the back porch about ten minutes ago, licking the last crumbs of Friskies Seafood Supreme out of the bottom the dish. About two seconds after I snapped this, an obnoxiously loud motorcyclist drove up my street and the noise sent the little possum scurrying for somewhere else.

Last time I posted one of these, my former insurance broker sent me an e-mail that said, "They look like giant rats." Two days later, I got an e-mail from the possum saying the same thing about insurance brokers.

Good night, Internet. I'm turning in early...for me, anyway.

• Posted at 1:28 AM · LINK