Stupid Stupid US Attorney General

Did embattled US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales deliberately choose to resign from office on the Monday when both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were off on a two week vacation?

Jamie Weinman of Macleans thought so on his blog, and so did Townie Bastard. Lord knows that both Stewart and Colbert have been getting some brilliant material from the fall of Gonzales, while shining the big bright "Our Leaders Are Incompetent At Best and Criminally Negligent At Worst" spotlight on the scandal on an almost daily basis. Did Gonzales deliberately choose to slip out the door while both shows were on a summer break? The timing, like everything to do with Gonzales, is suspicious.

We could ask Gonzales, but he wouldn’t know because HE CAN’T REMEMBER A $*#&ING THING! (pardon me)

“He’s either a perjurer or a low-level pinhead”
Jon Stewart on Bill Moyer's Journal April 27, 2007 (YouTube)

A great clip from The Daily Show as they present the telenovela “Mommy, Why Is The Lying Man Still in Charge of the Law” (via Accordion Guy)

US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigns (CNN)

Remember to have your QB spayed and neutered

TVGuide.com: OK, last question: Where do you stand on spaying and neutering?

Drew Carey: Absolutely. Very for it.

TVGuide.com: Maybe even do it twice to the pet for good measure?

Drew Carey: I think if I do get Price Is Right, I'll keep saying that at the end of the show and carry it on. [Going off on a tangent] Hey, listen, are you going to boycott the NFL if Michael Vick plays? [In mid-July, the Atlanta Falcons star was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of sponsoring a dog-fighting operation so grisly the losing dogs either died in combat or were electrocuted, drowned, hanged or shot.] If he plays, I'm not only going to find someone with picket signs, I'm going to join the picket and if I have time and my travel schedule allows, I'm going to picket the stadium if I can. After what happened with the Duke guys, I don't want to be rushing to judgment, but even if a little bit of it is true, if he knew what was going on and he didn't step in, f--k him. Get rid of him. If he did nothing, and silence is consent, f--k him, man. And f--k the NFL. Honestly. If they think they can wrap themselves in the American flag and sing the National Anthem twice and think we'll forget this, when guys are getting arrested for beating their wives and killing dogs.... We're supposed to go, "Oh well"? F--k you. It makes me so mad."

- Drew Carey, new host of The Price Is Right, goes on a tangent when asked if he will continue Bob Barker's traditional end-of-show reminder to have your pets spayed and neutered.

Drew Carey Clears the Air About His New Game-show Gigs

by Matt Webb Mitovich (TV Guide.com)

Live Earth, Dead Earth, but at least we have tunes

I had no urge or need to see the "Live Earth" concerts this weekend. These charity concerts have become mundane exercises in feel-goodery: let's put on a show to boost environmental awareness and teach folks how to reduce their carbon-footprint. Any ideas on how much gas, electricity, and waste a concert of that scale generates?

"[...] the only way I could achieve a larger carbon footprint than Live Earth would be to drop an asteroid on Australia. " - Warren Ellis,
author

I'm only guessing, but I give the performers the benefit of the doubt that they believe they were doing the right thing. But isn't it a bit hypocritical to have a rock star telling us that we can make a difference, that we have to change, when their highly consumptive lifestyle creates a carbon footprint the size of a small town? Several cars and houses, the CO2 produced by travelling back and forth in jets and buses. I believe more in the performers who refused to play, like The Arctic Monkeys, who couldn't justify playing a show for the environment, "especially when we're using enough power for 10 houses just for (stage) lighting."

Several performers elected not to participate, based on the counter-productive nature of such a show. As Vinay Menon (Toronto Star) pointed out, you can always tell the legitimacy of a charity concert by who doesn't show up: Radiohead, Coldplay, U2. You literally could have Live Earth be for any "insert charity here" cause, like some Simpsons joke. It just fills my cynic cup up to the brim.

"Forgive me, but did we really need to burn a sickening amount of fossil fuel flying rock stars to every continent – to say nothing of the environmental toll created at each venue by local traffic and a spike in consumption – to impart such mundane wisdom?" - Vinay Menon, Toronto Star

AA doesn't mean All-Ages

My encounter with the idiot who brought his 4 year old nephew to Transformers puts me in mind of another topic: what movies have you seen a parent bring kids to, only to leave or complain when they realized it wasn't a kids movie? I usually assume someone didn't take the time to actually look into reading a write-up or rating to see if it was approriate.

My winner: the mom who brought her little kids to see "South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut". She figures "hey, it's a cartoon, it's find for little Bobby and Rachel". And the opening is a parody of Disney cartoon songs, "Mountain Town". Then the characters go see the Terrence and Phillip movie.

Which features the song. You know the song: "Uncle F*cka" (wiki)

One line into the song, and mom clues in and takes her kids out of the theatre.

Any other close encounters with stupid parents?

Encounters With An Idiot Uncle

I'm at the theatre to watch Transformers. It's rated PG (PG-13 in the States) and it's about big giant robot blowing things up. It's just me, and I have my comfortable seat off the aisle. Got my bladder-buster soda, my heart stopping bucket of popcorn (no butter - I'm not reckless you know). It's a full theatre, opening weekend, and it's all single seats except for the neck-breaker row at the front. Right as the trailers are about to start, I spot a guy with a kid. And he's looking for a spot.

He spots an empty seat off to the side and ushers the kid in. He then asks if the seat next to me is free, which it is, and sits. A minute later he has the nerve to ask if I'd mind trading seats with his 4-year old nephew so they can sit together. If it had been earlier or any other movie, then probably I would. But here's this guy showing up with 2 minutes before the show, at a movie that is clearly going to scare a 4-year old. I got there early, got my prime seat, and he shows up late, the trailers have started and he wonders if I'd mind trading for a seat against the wall?

"Yes, I mind."

He says nothing of it, and spends the movie craning his neck, checking if the kid is all right or not. I didn't see the kid move or freak out. I'm sure that happens later, when he imagines the family Honda is going to go on a rampage. And what does the uncle care, he's not going to have to console Timmy at 3 in the morning when he wakes up screaming about the toaster wanting to kill him. That's what the parents are for.

As I think how stupid this guy is to bring a 4-year old to a movie where he has to sit alone and watch big scary robots blowing up people, I try to recall the last time I saw stupid behaviour like this. Then it hits me.

The park. This is the same jackass from the fireworks story:

Cut to the May 24 weekend. I was with a group of my friends at a picnic in the park for the May 24th holiday. We notice a young man (we presume he's an uncle) with two little kids, maybe 4 and 6, and he's teaching them to launch roman candle fireworks. By hand. In the middle of the afternoon. In a dry hot park.

Roman candles are tubes that shoot a half dozen "stars" into the air. You're supposed to be planted in the ground and then lit. They're banned in some areas due to the fact that people injure each other by FIRING THEM AT EACH OTHER. So points to the uncle for teaching young children how to do it. Jackass.

The kids are holding the roman candles and pointing them up and launch the fireworks "phoomp, phoomp, phoomp". You know what a roman candle looks like? A magic wand. I half expected them to look into the tubes to see if they were empty yet. Have fun with the ambulance. And after teaching the kids a valuable lesson in hand-held mayhem, he leaves the used firework tubes in the grass. Jackass.

But what does he care, it's not like the uncle is going to have to teach Timmy how to apply burn cream or Suzie how to write with 3 fingers on one hand.

Anchor says no more Paris

I first saw this on Accordion Guy's blog. MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski refuses to talk about Paris Hilton on the Morning Joe show and takes a stand against giving this spoiled brat waste of space any more publicity. Meanwhile her producer and co-anchors try to go on with the show and mock her on air.

Interesting. If it's genuine and not some elaborate ploy, then bravo. BTW can you believe the way the male anchors talk to her? Surprised they didn't blame it on "her time of the month". And they use "journalist" like it's a dirty word. I salute you Mika Brzezinski, for rekindling some of my faith in journalism. And on MSNBC of all places.

Shut up Rebecca Eckler, nobody cares

It’s not just me: everyone hates columnist Rebecca Eckler, all the way to the Canadian north. I’m an easy-going guy, but something about Rebecca Eckler, and Leah McLaren, just makes me want to scream. Her writing is the equivalent of "My Humps". The “inane and vapid” Eckler is suing the producers of “Knocked Up”, claiming they ripped off her book Knocked Up: Confessions of a Hip Mother-to-be, and she is getting little support from the public. And like TownieBastard, I too had something to say to my computer screen, and actually is a quote from the movie: “F*ck off”.

General consensus is that it’s an opportunistic bid to knock up her beleaguered profile and book sales with a waste of time of a lawsuit. She details her "fight against Hollywood" in her Maclean’s column (and good call letting Eckler air her beef there MacLean’s editors). Just reading her MacLean’s column generated my usual reaction to Rebecca Eckler’s writing “shutupshutupshutupnobodycaresshutup”.

The similarities she points out between the plot of the movie and her book are vague and coincidental at best, many of which are covered in the comment thread on ALOTT5MA:

• They both use the title “Knocked Up”. No case there, it’s common use.
• Both Eckler and “Knocked Up” Allison get drunk and get pregnant. Because, you know, Eckler thought of that first.
• Eckler got knocked up by her fiancé at her engagement party. In the movie, Allison gets knocked up after a night with a random guy she met at a bar. No similarity.
• Not only did the cover of the screenplay feature a martini glass with a soother around the stem, like the cover of the American edition of my book, the words "Knocked" and "Up" were in two different colours, the same as my book cover.” – that image never appeared in any of the promotion of the film.
• I don’t believe Eckler had a bunch of funny stoner friends sharing her place.
• In her book, Eckler “has a best-friend- with-screaming-children named Ronnie, who I go to often for advice. In the movie version, Alison has a sister, named Debbie, with screaming children, who is her sounding board.” I don’t recall the kids screaming in the movie, and using a family member or friend as a sounding board is standard Hollywood screenwriting 101.
• "Both 'Alison' and I did numerous pregnancy tests.” Well duh.
• "What also got my back up was that Ben, the man who gets Alison knocked up, is not only Jewish, but from Canada, like my man.” Seth Rogen (Ben) is also Canadian and Jewish (as you mention in your column) and he likes to work that into his scripts. He was Canadian in “Undeclared” too.

To sum up from a genuine lawyer-type person, her claim is shit. In other words: shut up and stop wasting our time you delusional, greedy, self-righteous, self-indulgent hack.

On the title of her book “Knocked Up: Confessions of a Hip Mother-to-be”, if you have to declare yourself “hip”, you aren’t.

Audio pollution: I need a "The Fray" - Free zone

This isn't a post to say I don't like The Fray. There's a couple of songs I liked on that last album, and they got a lucrative career ahead of them in the booming "Songs To Play Over A Montage on a Medical Show" genre ( I'm confident that section will be in HMV and iTunes shortly, where you'll also find Snow Patrol, Coldplay, and Damien West).

But damn, they just won't stop playing "How to Save A Life" aka The Grey's Anatomy song on the radios in my workplace. Thank God for my headphones, but 4 times daily is just too much Fray. It's like when that one really good song comes out in the summer gets played to death, like "Hey Ya!" by Outkast or "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley. I recommend re-visiting "Hey Ya!" and slowly re-introduce it into your music rotation. It's a remarkable song with some insane rhythms, and it's been long enough that you don't hear it as often. A little too recent to sit through "Crazy" just yet, maybe next year.

And while we're on the subject, why am I hearing Billy Ocean's "Caribbean Queen" daily now? I thought I left that tune back in the 80s, along with Smurfs and the lawn darts that were actually darts. I know that there's a funny running gag in the show Everybody Hates Chris, which is set in the 80s, with the little sister being a huge Billy Ocean fan while everyone else is into Michael Jackson. And same on Scrubs:

J.D.'s narration: (While listening to Billy Ocean's Caribbean Queen) Ah Billy! After the Arctic and the Pacific, you're my favourite ocean.

Is Billy due for a William Shatner-like resurgence?

Links: YouTube - Billy Ocean - Caribbean Queen