This week I am doing a little soul searching. Well, maybe it’s not soul searching, but the revelation that I know way too much about music and way too little about practically everything else. Lately, I have been realizing that while I have the vast music knowledge on the level of someone who lives in their parent’s basement and has never been laid, I know very little or at least the bare minimum about other things in life. [Read more →]
I don’t spend a lot of time writing about women’s sports. That’s likely because I don’t spend a lot of time watching women’s sports. This week, though, I need to dedicate some column-space to a couple of remarkable accomplishments that are truly noteworthy, and both occurred in the world of women’s college athletics. One involves the Penn State women’s volleyball team and the other the women’s basketball team from the University of Connecticut. [Read more →]
Sadly, Bernie Madoff loses the top spot for Swindler of the Era. That’s right, there’s someone out there who lies, cheats, and steals more than him. Who? It is the modern socialist who populates every corner of public discourse from the United States Congress and White House to the European Parliament and beyond. [Read more →]
10. Sharp Objects Potpourri
9. Mr. Wizard’s Home Liposuction Kit
8. Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Pitbulls
7. Lady Gaga Meat Playdress
6. The Highway Trampoline
5. Mattel’s Choking Hazard
4. The Sarah Palin Wind-Up Mama Grizzly
3. Baby’s First Self-Inoculation Kit
2. Owie! – The Jump-Off-The-Roof Game
1. The Underwear Bomber Blow-Up Doll
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
The House just passed a billto extend tax cuts another 2 years, and extend unemployment for several more months. The press, president, and some in congress seem to be lauding this legislation as some great achievement. The Republicans wanted to extend tax cuts for the rich, and the Democrats wanted to extend unemployment benefits for the lazy and or unfortunate, and they both got what they wanted. The compromise makes sense at first look. However, with the debt as swollen as it is now, wouldn’t the best compromise have been the opposite? [Read more →]
So anyway, the other day I was in my local HEB super center (that’s a grocery store for folks reading this who live outside of Texas and Mexico) and I decided to have a look at the books since I’m always interested to see the kind of books you can buy in a mega grocery store. Since they offer nothing but the best selling titles, it’s like a direct line to the popular reading taste.
There wasn’t too much Alejandro Jodorowsky or Daniil Kharms but there was a lot of James Patterson, Twilight, Sarah Palin and a goodly stack of George Bush’s Decision Points. What would it be like, I wondered, to spend a year only reading books purchased from HEB or Wal-Mart? I could call it The Year of Reading Dangerously, write a blog and then get a book out of it. Maybe even a film deal, like that Meryl Streep Julia Child crock of shit. [Read more →]
Dear NFL,
I write you as a friend to express some concerns. I may be writing only from my own pure — and perhaps misguided — nostalgia, but I worry about the future of my great game. (I apologize in advance for moments of incoherence and inconsistency, but like many long-standing passions, the one I have for you defies articulation — and reason.) [Read more →]
Generally speaking, everybody hates Christmas. I mean, everybody loves Christmas; it’s just that Christmas is kind of horrible. C’mon, you know what I mean! Wah, Wah! Buy me a gift! I want a present! God, mom. Give it a rest. The good news is, I’m here to make everything about Christmas easier. If you’ve been waiting until the last minute to buy the person you love the greatest present in the world, you’ve found the perfect gift guide. If you’re Jewish, close this page and go eat a matzoh or something. [Read more →]
The comedian Louis C.K. is, by his own account, a disgusting human being (which he sums up by noting he weighs 240 pounds and that there is no system where you determine your ideal weight by “taking your age and adding 200 pounds to it”). His sitcom Louie is incredibly funny, though in an episode I watched recently the laughter died when he had a doctor’s visit and subjected the audience to an extended shot of his bare ass. More disturbing, in his short-lived HBO show Lucky Louie — this is a man who likes the sound of his own name — he apparently went full-frontal. And I realize, Men and women take their clothes off for very different reasons. [Read more →]
Well, it’s official. It has taken me my entire life to get to this moment in time, but as of a week or two ago, I am 30 years old. A “milestone” birthday. Seeing the counter roll over to the three decade mark has made me think about my life for a bit, and I’d like to mention one of my reflections.
For a spurned ex-fiance, is there any better revenge than hitting your former partner in the wallet?
I almost laughed through my bleary eyes Thursday morning when I woke up and saw Lemondrop.com link to this story about a Chicago woman suing her former life partner-to-be for almost six figures to recover costs from a wedding that was cancelled at the last minute. It’s not the first tale of its kind, but the dollar amount close to $100k drew my attention.
Without a doubt, Dominique B is doing the right thing. Nuptials are serious business with major financial ramifications for those footing the bill. If her man was getting cold feet, he owed it to her to end the relationship before expenses mounted and Dominique’s monetary investment grew to a level close to her emotional one. You’ll be hard pressed to find a better argument in favor of small, quaint ceremonies (read: inexpensive ones).
These kinds of situations should go both ways. If a woman pulls the ‘Runaway Bride’ act, men should drop the legal hammer if they see fit. It’s important for people, regardless of gender, to hit the brakes long before the big day spirals out of control. If their feelings are in doubt, they probably care more about the dollars anyway.
Back in the Golden Age of easy credit I’d walk around Britain wondering where all the money was coming from. This abundance of cash was especially baffling in Scotland, where nobody makes anything any more. Who was scoffing down truffles in the fancy restaurants? Who was shelling out a fortune for houses that had been built for miners in the 1930s? Of course, the high priests of money-voodoo insisted that there was nothing to worry about. Then the global economy crashed. [Read more →]
Imagine a small country with a native population known as Culture A with new residents from another country known as Culture B. Culture A has been in existence for a couple of centuries and enjoys a prosperous lifestyle with all the modern conveniences from cars to dishwashers to lavish vacations. Culture B comes from a place with less material comforts. Educational opportunities abound for Culture A children in their native land while Culture B children were mostly stuck in a restrictive class structure that offered few chances for self-betterment. [Read more →]
TIME magazine recently announced its selection of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as its “Person of the Year.” Below is the complete text from their essay on Zuckerberg and why they chose him:
Many years ago, perhaps as many as 100 years ago, a dead white person made an astute observation about human nature. That observation was vague enough that it could be applied to anything, and I am applying it, now, to TIME’s “Person of the Year” selection, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. [Read more →]
Say you’ve just gotten your tickets at the TKTS booth in midtown and you have a couple of hours before curtain. Your first impulse might be to go to a deli, but delis in midtown have absurdly large portions and prices to match. I say go west towards Hell’s Kitchen. A nice street is 46th where you’ll pass Restaurant Row, a stimulating stretch that is a little like the back end of a carnival midway. Pretty hostesses and handsome hosts are on the curb to entice you into their establishments with pre-theater specials. This is prime tourist country, however, and while you can get a good meal there (and sing show tunes at “Don’t Tell Mama” when your show is over) the prices go down as soon as you turn the corner onto Ninth Avenue. So that’s what I do.
From the blog of Bruce Schneier comes this absolute gem that paints an accurate, though petrifying, picture of what our great country has become. The kicker is that the terrorist attacks on 9/11 were a catalyst, but the transformation was all our doing. [Read more →]
Perhaps my expectations were too high. Black Swan is getting excellent reviews and I have been hearing positive buzz for months. I do not see it as the masterpiece some are claiming it is, but the film has an excellent cast and is a fine psychological thriller. [Read more →]
“WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Virginia threw out the controversial plank of President Obama’s health-care law that requires Americans to buy coverage… In a ruling issued yesterday Judge Henry Hudson struck down the so-called “individual mandate” provision as unconstitutional. He said the federal government does not have the authority to order people to purchase coverage.”
This sounds right. Can we really force citizens to purchase financial services? That is essentially what the new health-care law does by fining adults who do not purchase health insurance by 2014.
I had been looking forward to seeing David Russell in concert for a long time. In my opinion, he is the finest living classical guitarist. He was to perform at the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia. It’s a pretty big room. It seats about five-hundred and there were people standing in the back, too. People suck up sound, you know. I leaned over to a fellow guitarist and said, “Do you see any microphones?” He furrowed his brow and shook his head. We were worried. We were halfway back in the crowd. This was terrible. Then, David Russell trotted out pleasantly to lively applause and took his seat. He checked his tuning, but the turning of the buttons had the secondary effect of serving as a volume dial for his audience: the crowd slowly went as silent as a snowy pine-forest. [Read more →]
