Category: Brooklyn

Comic strip commentary: the latest Mary Worth – Mary takes her presumed stalker Aldo into her apartment to make it clear why she doesn’t want him to stalk her anymore. Now you, me and the rest of the normal world would say: “Mary, what the heck is wrong with you? You don’t let a stalker, even if he is a neighbor, into your apartment. You call the cops and get a restraining order against the man.” Particularly when Aldo has already a known alcohol problem and confessed to have neglected his wife (who was already mightily pissed with him after their fight and, when he was passed out drunk, she drowned in the filled tub after tripping into it – thus he felt he “killed” her).

So, Aldo gets the shock of his life upon entered Mary’s apartment. Gasp! It’s not the love nest he was expecting but these people that he didn’t know. Toby, her husband the Professor, and Wilbur (of the Dear Wendy column), Mary’s closest friends in the condo. Funny how Aldo doesn’t recognize them, since (a) they’re his neigbhors too; and (b) Mary hangs out with them; so if he’s a real stalker, he’d know who they are.

Anyway, apparently, Toby is determined to give Aldo an “intervention” to force him to stop stalking Mary. Oh-kay. Let’s see if this works. Unless she, Wilbur and the Professor have nightsticks hidden behind their backs, I’m not sure what will get through to Aldo. Not that I’m encouraging vigilante violence against stalkers. Really not my place to do that, I should think.

The third season premiere of FOX’s “House, M.D.” begins tomorrow! A nice article previewing the upcoming season: looks like more of Dr. Wilson’s dark side is coming out. Like we hadn’t gotten hints of it last season (too many inklings that Wilson’s a serial adulturer and a guy who falls for his female cancer patients and when he practices tough love on House, well… he may be House’s best and only friend, you got to wonder about this man for the reasons he even hangs out with House).

Oh, geez. American Express’ sponsoring the US Open gave us this little game: Andy Roddick v. Pong. For your complete and utter waste of time and enjoyment. Addicting game, of course, and you come to despise Pong and your own mouse.

More updates to my little website. Change on the fiction page – a new vignette. Some changes on the links page. Hopefully the little graphic there actually pops up.

US Open: Agassi v. Becker game – Benjamin Becker, no relation to Boris. Umm, I know everyone’s for Agassi, but Dick Enberg on CBS sounded a little too enthused that young Becker was feeling a little physical pain. Come on!

At any rate, so long, Andre Agassi. It’s been great. Your adopted city of NY loves you, you know that? Now, go out there and enjoy the rest of your life!

Spent most of today drifting in and out of consciousness. Guess I was that tired. When I was awake, I ended up watching way much of the Andre Agassi marathon on CBS, since they were airing it due to the rainout of the US Open. Tribute to Agassi indeed.

The remnants of Tropical Storm/Hurricane Ernesto made things wet and windy in the East Coast.
Updates to my little website. New art – so check it out.

Interesting article. Apparently food safety regulators are concerned about how Asian people in America store Asian food:

Two Asian delicacies are the subject of a simmering debate pitting merchants who like to store them at room temperature for hours against food safety regulators who worry the practice could allow bacteria to build up.

One is a rice cake filled with fatty pork and beans, wrapped in banana leaves and served during the Lunar New Year. Another is a baked pastry consisting of lotus paste and a duck egg yolk. [….]

The “lotus paste and a duck egg yolk” things sounds an awful lot like mooncake, if you asked me (I could be very completely wrong about that, being the not-entirely-knowledgeable ABC that I am). But, I’m in the mind that if a billion plus Asian people eat some of this stuff and haven’t been that harmed, how bad can the stuff be? (particularly mooncakes, which admittedly don’t get refrigerated when you buy them off the shelves, but they’re so preserved, what’s the point? Anyhoo, they taste better cold if you asked me). Uh, never mind…

The Entertainment Weekly double issue/Fall tv preview! This is going to take awhile to read and analyze.

A story on the concept of brunch.

Recipe for what sounds like a tasty BLT. And, an article on the return of those amazing little appetizers: pigs in a blanket (apparently, actually little beef franks in pastry, since pork isn’t kosher).
The sad reality that there’s a decline in women in as law clerks in the US Supreme Court, Linda Greenhouse analyzes. Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick discusses it further.

For anyone who ever wondered whatever happened to the ex-“Night Court” judge, Harry Anderson: he moved to New Orleans, opened a club, and in the post-Katrina era, finds that he can no longer stay. Sad story, really.

Tuesday night: Tavis Smiley had a great interview with Douglas Brinkley, Professor of History at Tulane, regarding his latest book on the first week of Katrina. Brinkley criticizes the feds and the mayor of New Orleans, on the air and, apparently, in his book. I think it was amazing that he managed to get his family out of New Orleans and then immediately got cracking on preserving stories for history.

“If you’re stupid, don’t vote.” An argument against letting the non-informed from voting.
Summer reading: Neil Degrasse Tyson’s companion book to the Nova series “Origins” (with co-writer Donald Goldsmith). Some physics and astronomy stuff that flew over my head, but very well written and very genial voice – kind of like a having a good friendly guide trying to set you on the right direction in appreciating Space, the Final Frontier (apologies to the Star Trek folks).

Sundance Channel ran Mardi Gras Made in China as a counterpoint to our Katrina rememberances. The documentary maker interviews Mardi Gras partiers and the Chinese people who make their beads – both being completely ignorant of each other. The beads might as well have been dropped from Mars; when the workers were shown what was done with the beads, they thought they came from Mars. Who is being indicted here?

One year later. The posts from last year, on it dawns on us that this was something.
NBC’s Brian Williams tonight with a retrospect. The pictures are still hard to grasp.

Trying to plan out the trip to San Francisco coming up in September. Five days there. Hmm. Can’t guarantee blogging while there, but I got a month to figure it out.
Blogging the Emmies. Wasn’t even sure I’d watch, but apparently I am watching. And blogging it. If you don’t want the results spoiled for you, turn away!

Conan O’Brien’s opening gag – a la Billy Crystal’s Oscars thing where he plods through the movies – Conan’s running through the tv shows – well, it ran a little long to me.

Best Supporting Actor to Alan Alda, West Wing. Great for Alan Alda, but he wasn’t even there to accept the award!  And, too bad, Gregory Itzin, the wacked out president of “24.”

The Sheens presenting the Best Supporting Actress in a Drama. Umm… Blythe Danner?! Who the heck watches “Huff”?! The Emmy voters, I guess. But, apparently, they don’t watch “24”! Poor Jean Smart – her First Lady on “24” was great and kicked like that by Emmy voters? Ugh!

They’re cutting people off in speeches. Very bad. The gag that they’ll suffocate Bob Newhart in a vacuum tube with only 3 hours of air to force people to stay within time – funny idea and Newhart’s being a good sport – but the gags are looking to be what’s long, not the speeches.

Jeremy Piven! Yeah!

More unnecessary gags.

Fancy Feast cat food commercial – very nice looking food, apparently inspired by the gourmet restaurant stuff. Not that I’d begrudge cats or dogs, but when they eat food that looks better than what I’d eat, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to think.

Ads for NBC’s upcoming season are making me feel a little displeased.  Then again, I’m not sure how much of NBC I’ll be watching.

I am all for honoring Dick Clark. Do we need Barry Manilow? Clips to honor Clark’s work in general and specifically his old “American Bandstand” were more than enough.

The Ernst and Young gag – introducing them as the auditors – along with Kareem Abdul Jabaar. Funny.

Poor Newhart.  Still stuck?!
So far, “24” hasn’t won the acting awards, but a directing one. Ok.

Tony Shalhoub for Leading Actor in a Comedy. Umm. Okay. Poor Jason Bateman and Steve Carrell. And, yeah, I guess Larry David too (I don’t have cable; can’t speak for David).

Keifer Sutherland! Yeah! “24” gets an acting Emmy. And, his dad Donald in the audience. And, he thanks everyone, plus the FOX network.

“The Office” winning the best comedy award. Guess NBC had to get something. Maybe I’ll start watching the show; seems funny. Sorry to “Arrested Development.”

“24”?! Best drama! Considering that this was the ultimate 24 season – well, yeah, sure!

Bob Newhart freed from the vacuum tube.

And, ending right on time!

Hmm. The definitions of nerd, geek, and dork. Dork is apparently not a good thing.

According to my Nerd Purity Test Result:

You answered “yes” to 18 of 100 questions, making you 82.0% nerd pure; that is, you are 82.0% pure in the nerd domain (you have 18.0% nerd in you).
Your Weirdness Factor (AKA Uniqueness Factor) is 13%, based on a comparison of your test results with 576688 other submissions for this test.

The average purity for this test is 73.8%.

I kind of figured that would be some kind of nerd in me, particularly when the survey whether I could name at least 10 titles of Star Trek episodes. I figured that meant for Original Trek and the spinoffs (in which case, yeah, I probably can name more than 10, or at least 10).

And, according to the Geek Test, I have Geekish Tendencies (which I already knew).

I scored worse on the Geek Purity Test (if only because their questions were… less scientific):

You answered “yes” to 10 of 129 questions, making you 92.2% geek pure; that is, you are 92.2% pure in the geek domain (you have 7.8% geek in you).
Your Weirdness Factor (AKA Uniqueness Factor) is 2%, based on a comparison of your test results with 191614 other submissions for this test.
The average purity for this test is 80.1%.

Guess I’m more nerd than geek. Well, go figure.  [pardon the bad formatting   – it’s looking like italics and blockquoting in parts where they should be either…]