Category Archives: Unclassifiable

A lot of folks consider the A.P. Stylebook as an important decider in what is and is not good grammar. Hopefully, their newest decision won't upset too many purists.

Have you ever tasted Kobe beef? Well, you may think you have but Larry Olmsted says you haven't; that what's sold and served in the U.S. as Kobe beef is not really Kobe beef.

This is getting very confusing. First, we were told that our "100% beef" burgers included something called Pink Slime…and by the way, if you ever want to do away with a product, just get folks referring to it as "Pink Slime." I don't care what it really is. I can't bring myself to put anything in me that others refer to as "Pink Slime."

And now we also have a problem with something called "White Slime"…which I always thought was a nickname for the kind of people who voted for Pat Buchanan.

But you know what the funny part of this is? If Kellogg's put out a cereal called Pink Slime or the Topps Bubble Gum folks put out a candy called White Slime, kids would eat it up. They wouldn't eat their carrots but they'd eat the Slime.

Not sure why I find this funny but I do. As Google sends cameras around the world to photograph everything for Google Maps, they employ some kind of facial recognition software to recognize when there's a face in a photo and to blur it. If you're walking down a street when the Google cameras snap that street, your face will be blurred so as not to invade your privacy or give you some vague grounds on which to sue the people with the deep, deep pockets.

Okay. But that software is so sensitive that it blurs the faces of cartoons that look only vaguely human. Here, in this image I cribbed off Google Maps, we see that it has protected the anonymity of the little chicken mascot at a Koo Koo Roo restaurant. No wonder that chain is doing so poorly.

Ben Yogada, discusses the science of when, to use, a comma in what you, write.

I have my own rules and have debated them with editors and proofreaders over the years. Lately though, I find myself using fewer and fewer. Longtime readers of this blog have actually noticed.

We've long since reached the point where if Barack Obama drinks a root beer, some prominent Republican or right-wing pundit has to express outrage and tell us why it's shameful for the Leader of the Free World to drink a root beer…never mind that the last six Republican presidents, the exalted Reagan included, drank root beer. Reagan especially doesn't count because he had A&W, whereas Obama's drinking Hires.

One of the stupider accusations of this stripe is that there's something wrong with Obama using a TelePrompter. There's been one on the podium of every political convention for around 50 years and just about every politician has used them, particularly when delivering (as presidents do) prepared speeches that have been released to the press in advance. The exceptions would be someone like Richard Nixon who sometimes (not always) avoided the 'Prompter and just read his speech from paper, which is more honest…how?

Nixon thought using a TelePrompter made him look shifty-eyed on camera…and he may also have been worried about sabotage. It is not a not-uncommon prank on TV shows that use TelePrompters to put something on there that the on-camera reader will read aloud without realizing what he or she is reading until it's out.

I worked a few years on That's Incredible! and we used to do that to the hosts all the time. One time, we were doing the opening where they introduce themselves and just to cause trouble, I had the 'Prompter guy replace "I'm Cathy Lee Crosby" with "I'm Broderick Crawford." Somewhere here, I have a piece of video, probably on Beta, of Ms. Crosby reading the line and then pausing to wonder why she'd just introduced herself as Broderick Crawford.

It may be on the same tape as the clip of Fran Tarkenton reading an admission that he was gay. (Fran, who's a sharp guy, caught on right after he said it…but he's also a good sport so he went right on and read the part about how he'd had sex with every single player on the Minnesota Vikings, especially the Tight Ends…)

I don't know that President Obama is any more or less reliant on TelePrompters than any other Chief Exec. He might use it more often to minimize the slight stammer he has. But the idea that he's unable to speak without it is clearly disproved by the many times he clearly isn't using one…in the presidential debates, for instance, or when he's out in public. Still, some of his detractors want to believe he's not really smart and articulate the same way some want to believe he isn't really the President of the United States because, you know, he was born in Kenya.

If they have any valid point it's when they assert he's reading words that someone else wrote. But that's true of every politician who rises anywhere near the level of President. John F. Kennedy's famous "Ask not" line was from his inaugural address which was largely written by Theodore Sorenson. George W. Bush's famous "Axis of evil" was actually written by David Frum. If we want to start faulting presidents for employing speechwriters, we're going to have to fault all of them.

But the TelePrompter complaint is pretty silly…and it got sillier recently when a Washington Post writer made an issue of Bruce Springsteen using a TelePrompter when performing on stage. A member of Bruce's band, Nils Lofgren, responded with an explanation: The Boss occasionally does completely new numbers, taking requests for tunes he's never performed before. So someone Googles to find the lyrics and tosses them up on the 'Prompter for him. That's quite different. Instead of relying on the device to help him play it safe, Springsteen's using it to try something more adventurous. But really, the response to the Post piece should have been along the line of "Who cares?" Judge what's said or sung, not how the person manages to get it out.

Art Spiegelman divulges the origins of the Garbage Pail Kids franchise. You have no idea how popular those things were.

This is the last week that your local Souplantation restaurant will be featuring its Classic Creamy Tomato Soup for a while. The "while" may be until next March. You can find out if you have a Souplantation local to you on this page. Your local Souplantation may be called Sweet Tomatoes.

This coming Saturday, Frank Ferrante will be performing his terrific An Evening With Groucho in Rancho Cucamonga, California. This is about as close to Los Angeles as he's been in years and the audience will include a number of my friends and me. This will be the sixth time I've seen Frank do this trick he does of turning himself into the legendary comedian for 90+ minutes so that should give you some idea how much I like him. The performance is almost sold out but if you wanna be there, here's the info.

For those of you nowhere near Rancho Cucamonga: Here's a link to his calendar so you can see if he's going to be shooting an elephant in his pajamas near you. Note that Frank usually does one-nighters but he'll be in Seattle for three weeks in May.

Guy-on-the-go Joe Brancatelli writes about great credit card deals for travellers. What I'm looking for is the card that promises that any time you call an airline, you'll be connected within one minute to an actual human being who knows something and can fix problems. This is probably asking too much…

My former writing partner Dennis Palumbo has some wise words for writers about dealing with deadlines. Personally, I find the best way to deal with deadlines is to stop worrying about them and write the damned script.

Here's a gallery of some of the recent (and in some cases, pretty darn clever) political pieces in MAD magazine.

I read this article by Chris Parker earlier this evening while waiting for a "to go" order at a restaurant and found it interesting enough to share with you. It's about how your United States Government shut down the online poker industry. I'm not sure if I think that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Brady MacDonald offers tips on how to cover Disneyland in one day. Seems to me most of those tips would help you with multiple days, too.