Video break

I realize I'm like the one millionth person to post these videos on his/her Web site ...

But EVERYBODY is buzzing about these this week, and I couldn't keep myself from posting them here ...

First, the British talent show featuring none other than American Idol's Simon Cowell and now infamous Susan Boyle, whose beautiful voice has everyone in tears by the time she's finished ...

Secondly, Lindsay Lohan's spoof on a Internet dating video from funnyordie.com ...

And finally an original. Remember when I mentioned the other day that one of Phoebe's new favorite words is "a-daup." Here, she's using it in action as she plays with an outlet and phone jack ... Don't worry, they're baby-proofed.



4.20.2009 update

Some good reads about Susan Boyle ...
a Susan Boyle interview: 'I'm happy the way I am: short and plump'
a Unlikely Singer Is YouTube Sensation
a 5 reasons why Susan Boyle is different from your usual overnight sensation
a Susan Boyle: Famous In An Instant

Sunday reading

It's Oscar night ...

Yippee.

The only things I cared about were Jon Stewart's comedy and Diablo Cody winning the award for best original screenplay. Both played out just the way I'd hoped -- Stewart was funny and Cody won. But there were a few bonuses, too -- I loved Amy Adams singing the Happy Working Song (she was adorable!) and it also was great seeing Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova perform their song from "Once" ... And then winning for it! ... And then seeing Stewart bring Irglova back out to the microphone for a second chance at giving an acceptance speech!

All great moments.

Some of the good reads that caught my eyes during the last couple weeks ...

Baseball ...
a Look who's in LA-LA land
a Fewer WGN games means more revenue ... Yeah, but it sucks for Cubs fans not living in the Chicago area.
a Pettitte praised by Congress, but hits are coming soon
a Ten key points that were missed during the hearings
a Prosecutors file new details in Bonds case
a The bottom line on Clemens' statistical performance
a Whether on mound or Hill, Clemens is the same man
a 'You can tell your boys I did it the right way' Or not.
a Lot of misremembering going on, but Clemens is the one doing it
a Hank Aaron Believes Baseball Can Move On
a Wood favored in competition for closer
a Carlos Zambrano ready to be ace Cubs need
a Soriano reports early to Cubs camp
a Kosuke Fukudome launches Cubs' career
a Lee could drop to cleanup as part of Cubs' lineup shuffle
a Ranking the best general managers in the game... Yep. Theo Epstein, hands down.
a Bonds' value significantly deflated

Music ...
a Soundtrack making star of Kimya Dawson
a Fans love Carpenters, not carpenters ... I love the Carpenters! Save the house!

TV ...
a 'Lost': Mind-Blowing Scoop From Its Producers

Movies ...
a A year for hot movie scripts
a Not just anyone can be an actor
a The Oscars: A dark view on dark times
a Lindsay Lohan nude in recreated Marilyn Monroe photo shoot

The Internet ...
a What Facebook Knows That You Don't

Politics ...
a Clintons' bias card has basis
a Obama Fever Is Breaking On the Web
a Obama's Missing Ideas
a It will be tough getting used to life without Hillary Clinton, a candidate so perfect that few could identify with her

Life & other stuff ...
a Red-letter day for Blu-ray
a A kiss is just a kiss

Sunday reading

It's 1 degree outside. Perfect for an afternoon inside, preparing and sorting through more baby stuff ...

Here's some of the stories and headlines that caught my eyes during the last couple weeks ...

The Super Bowl ... (Such a great game ... How can we not still be talking about it!?)
a 4th-quarter pass to Tyree is one of the great plays of all time ... "You cannot watch it enough. Or fail to be astonished, at just how clutch that signature play of Super Bowl XLII really was."
a The name of the game is greed ... Amen.
a Former Giants GM not saying 'I told you so' about Manning
a Ten legacies shattered by upsets ... Excellent history lesson in some of sports biggest upsets ...

Sports, in general ...
a Expectant in victory: Women's basketball coach still on the ball

Music & entertainment...
a Making A Case For Storied Tunes ... A good piece on Neko Case.
a Review: Sheryl Crow's 'Detours'
a Lohan: 'It's Like, What Was I Thinking?' ... Obviously she wasn't.
a 30 TV Shows You'd Bring Back from the Grave... I was thinking Early Edition before I even started looking through this slideshow. I would totally bring it back -- along with Boomtown, and two not on the list, Committed (a hilarious sitcom that NBC never gave a chance) and -- hello! -- Ed.

Politics ...
a Ask Not . . . What the Press Can Do For Obama
a Why Republicans Like Obama
a Primary pleasures
a Relative Power: We Elect Our Leaders, and Dynasties Are Few, but Sometimes Ascension Looks Like an Inheritance
a Romney's Parting Shot

Life & other stuff ...
a Chicago: The World's Kind of Town?
a Kids Can't Focus These Days. Then Again, Neither Can I. ... pretty much.
a Worth the Paper It's Printed On ... A good argument against a paperless society.
a Spending a night at Trump's place ... and the accompanying blog.

Sunday rambling

Toured haunted houses on Friday night ... Worked around the house yesterday ... Stayed up late to watch the Sox-Indians game last night ... And just finished watching the Packers-Redskins game, which neither team apparently wanted to win today ...

Now I'm wondering where the weekend went again ...

* * *

Kates and I just finished eating supper. Pierogis with sausages and an array of peppers. Good stuff.

Afterward, Kates tells me “You’re on dish duty.”

“Wha?” I say. “I got a baseball game to watch.”

“Whatever. I got papers to grade. Masters papers to write. I got people calling me. I’m a busy woman.”

Whatever? I’m always on dish duty. We need a dishwasher …

* * *

I still can't stop listening to Regina Spektor ...

Here's two weeks worth of good reads that caught my eyes ...

Entertainment ...
a To Leno, it's guilty until proven innocent
a Can Lindsay save herself from Britneyville?

Music ...
a Sell your old CDs at your own risk. It won't be long before you get a yen to sing along with them again
a Sting tops Blender’s list of worst lyricists
a Are record companies still relevant?
a The folks who brought you 'American Idol' turn voters loose on bands
a Josh Ritter Eschews Politics for Heartland Rock on 'Historical Conquests'
a Kid Rock has an 8-track mind
a Radiohead, the savior of 21st century rock?
a 'Kurt Cobain About a Son' an intimate portrait of the artist

Business...
a Is Apple losing some of its shine?
a The end of the Wal-Mart era
a Newspapers, bloggers now on same page

Washington & politics ...
a Arlington National Cemetery Plans to Move Beyond Its Borders
a Hillary Chuckles; Pundits Snort
a Chill out: Stop fighting over global warming -- here's the smart way to attack it.

Baseball ...
a As Bonds and Giants Part, BALCO Limps On
a Cubs' baggage gets heavier
a Song Makes a Comeback Along With the Cubs
a GM job of no interest to Stone ... thank goodness. I got a little bit nervous this week when I read he could be the GM.
a Yanks' loss may mean end of an era
a A-Rod could solve a lot of problems
a On the Mark: A-Rod fails to shine again
a Meet the Mets: They're not what they seem
a Where does Mets' collapse rank?
a Oh baby, what's a Sox fan to do?
a Times change. To his credit, so did Bud

Life & other stuff ...
a Whatcha Doing Now? ... And Now?

Aunt Threatens To Devour Helpless Newborn's Toes

WALDEN, TN—While family members stood silently by and did nothing, visiting aunt Debbie Koeler proclaimed her desire to consume the "tiny...

Sunday reading

Some of the good reads that caught my eye over the last week ...

Tech stuff ...
a Apple expected to unveil a new iPod
a Is Facebook the New MySpace? ... I'm still finding my way on this whole Facebook stuff. And I still like MySpace better ...
a MySpace could lift ban on commerce

Entertainment ...
a Britney reportedly earns $737,868 per month
a Watch out Lindsay! Daddy’s coming to visit

Media ...
a Katie Couric to Report From Iraq, Syria
a It's back to basics for Katie Couric's newscast ... Now they're thinking over there at CBS. I didn't buy their schmaltzy "new and improved" newscast for a minute. The traditional format doesn't need tinkering. Just give me the news of the day straight up with a couple heartfelt human interest stories and that's all I need ...

Baseball ...
a Stretch run turns into a stress run for fans ... Got that right. I'm feelin' it this year.
a Charles Albert Comiskey II: 1925 - 2007
a Knocking at death's door with no answers: Amazing that '05 champs have fallen so far, so fast
a Guillen's rant is sent in the wrong direction

Other stuff ...
a Mining Our Treasures: An 1872 Law Paves the Way for a Rush of Claims in the West
a Enter the world of Sokolow
a A wave of disapproval greets Cardiff surf statue
a White House Vet Ari Fleischer, Back to Fight for The Surge in Iraq
a Out-of-body experience created in labs
a Big Mac marks big birthday
a Study Predicts More Severe U.S. Storms ... Scary

Another movie night!

Now halfway through our vacation week, Kates and I knocked off two more movies last night ...

... Over The Hedge. Watched it.

... Prairie Home Companion. Cross it off.

... We watched Prairie Home Companion first. Didn't like it much ... Watching the trailers and the all-star cast, my hopes were high. Plus, I seem to remember Lindsay Lohan getting some kudos for her role as the daughter of Meryl Streep's character, the floozy Yolanda ... then again, I'm not as familiar with Robert Altman's work, Garrison Keillor or even the legend of the Prairie Home Companion radio shows ... Kates on the other hand, I learned later, had a better idea of what we were getting into, having listened to the radio show with her parents as a child ...

... What I expected to be a quirky but flowing, wholesome story about some radio show turned out to be a winding storyline that often made no sense to me ... As a duo John C. Reilly and Woody Harrelson were quite fun to watch, and Virginia Madsen's came off well, despite her mysterious, sometime out-of-place character ... The rest? Forget it ...

Next up. Over The Hedge.

... I went into this one with low expectations. I was well aware that Ben Folds -- whose musical genius I, of course, worship -- had a large part in the film's music. So with that in mind -- as well as the all-star cast involved in this film, too -- I wanted to really enjoy it, but I was too fearful of having unrealistic hopes and having the movie be a flop. So, yeah, low expectations.

... And well ...

... I ended up enjoying it. It's not a spectacular film ... but it's definitely worth seeing, I think.

... One of my first thoughts looking back on it, is that it often amazes me how these creators come up with these wild, wacky and adventurous -- and extremely entertaining -- tales for animated films. The premise in this one is a family of small creatures -- porcupines, possum, a squirrel, a skunk, and their leader, a turtle -- who wake up from hibernation to find their forest habitat reduced to a suburban subdivision. Enter a conniving raccoon who teaches them how to dig through trash bags and crash backyard barbecues to get their stash ...

All of it -- did I mention the wonderful cast!? -- shapes up for a wonderfully entertaining and charming little family film ...

Movie night!

... Let the vacation-week-movie-watching begin!

... First up. "Mean Girls."

Like OMIGOD!!! It was soooo HA-larious!

Seriously. That was some of the most fun I've had watching a movie in a long time.

Superb cast. Great characters. A hilarious take on the urban legends and stereotypes of high school life; it was like an-amped up "10 Things I Hate About You."

I have to admit, seeing this movie was hardly at the top of my list (that's evident by the fact I saw it more than two years after it came out...), mostly because I saw it as another dumbed-down teenie-bopper flick and it starred Lindsay Lohan ... But Lohan is suprisingly good in the movie (after all, I really liked her during more innocent times in "The Parent Trap" and "Freaky Friday," too ...), and the narration of her inner thoughts helps create some of the best moments of the film ...

On top of that, Ana Gasteyer and Neil Flynn (as Cady's parents), Rachel McAdams and the rest of the crazed plastics, and Lizzy Caplan (as Cady's friend Janis ... and good ol Kat from The Class, Woo hoo!) are all perfect for their roles ...

Then you bring in the SNL backgrounds of Tina Fey (not to mention her writing genius), Tim Meadows and Amy Poehler as the cool mom -- well, that's the icing on the cake.

Great movie.

* * *

We caught a little bit of "Raising Helen" on TV during the intermission (another great movie with a stellar, fun cast! ... highly recommended family film!). It was hard to turn it off, but we had to move on ...

... Next up "Mr. 3000."

Now I know this movie got horrible reviews. But the fact it's a baseball movie about the Milwaukee Brewers and it's filming at Miller Park was a big story around these parts wasn't going to stop me ...

Bernie Mac of course plays the aging selfish baseball star, Stan Ross, who blind-sides his team by announcing his retirement on the day he reaches the 3,000 hits milestone. But when statisticians find an error that shows he actually finished his career three hits short of 3,000, he makes a comical return to the major leagues in pursuit of those three hits ...

There's a cutesy love story between Stan and an ESPN reporter who's covering his pursuit. There's the owner who lures Stan back to the bigs to increase the team's poor attendance. And the young star of the team who mirrors a younger Stan Ross. ... then as usual, they all come together in the end for a happily-ever-after conclusion ...

Though many of the jokes fall flat, some of the best parts of the movie are the interplay by the hapless team in the clubhouse and dugout. Plus, one of the famous Brewers sausage mascots is often seen lingering in the stadium tunnel and taunting Stan, which also makes for a couple good moments ... and for a guy who regularly sees games at Miller Park and watches teh Brewers on TV, the stadium shots and faux television spots are dead-on in recreating the moods and culture that goes with seeing a game at the park.

A worthy watch.

Watching the American Music Awards

My thoughts tonight as I watched the AMAs ...

… Could Mariah Carey have been wearing any less clothing? At least she apologized for her opening number sounding so bad.

… even while he’s sold millions of records, Rob Thomas still might be one of the most underrated musician/songwriters of our time.

… Lindsay Lohan!?!?! HA!! I could hardly stop laughing all the way through her horrible performance. If anyone in music producer land is reading this -- Please! You have GOT to be kidding me! Pull all of her records from the shelf NOW!

… I was about to say Hillary Duff had some talent … until I started suspecting she was lip-syncing.

… we’re almost half way through the show now, and let me just nominate Cyndi Lauper and Sarah McLachlan for the sweetest, most pleasing performance of the night! Surrounded by an array of stringed instruments, McLachlan’s signature voice combined with Lauper’s crooning added a whole new dimension to “Time After Time.” …. But I have to agree with Cedric, man. Seriously. The big wigs almost wrecked the performance by showing the whole thing in black and white…

… I’ve never caught on to the Santana craze. All his guitar riffs sound the same to me.

… What’s up with Michelle Branch’s red hair!?

… And what’s up with all the country performers!? They already had their awards show last week!

… Paris Hilton gets my nomination for best dressed of the night. She looked hot AND respectable. What a novel idea!

… The Rolling Stones performance was … ah …good?

a Vignettes from the 33rd annual American Music Awards
a Winners seem few and far between at American Music Awards

Deep impact

It appears some relief is arriving tonight for the people in New Orleans (for more go here). But it will be a long time before the frustration and fallout of this disaster subsides …

And we can give all the money we have to the relief effort. Though it’s perhaps more sad how skeptical I remain of where the money’s going and who’s getting it. Those feelings turned for the worse today when I heard a news report that one city prepared pallets and pallets of water to send for the victims, but FEMA told them it didn’t want the water -- only cash. And during my lunch today, a kid knocked on my door, shoving a donation card in my face. Before I had time to think about it, he was asking for my name. And then when I tried to stop him, he abruptly said, ‘OK, I need the card back’ and shuffled away ….

Getting the latest hurricane news was the first thing I thought of today when I woke up and kissed my wife off to work. Updates on the relief effort were the only things occupying my mind as I came home for lunch today. And again, I was rushing home from work to make sure I could catch the updates on the network news …

I guess it sort of hit me today the impact this disaster has had, much more than I would have realized when I wasn’t so interested, say, on Monday or Tuesday, as was most other parts of our nation and world. But I watched Harry Connick Jr. talking to Katie Couric this morning, reeling from the poor relief effort and practically yelling about how easy it was for him to walk up to the thousands of suffering people at the New Orleans Convention Center. Why is the relief not getting there, he cried … I watched the president offer seemingly hollow excuses and charges to reporters in a morning press conference. … Then at lunch I saw the video of a CNN reporter meeting up with an Asian mother and daughter who were stranded in a hotel room. They had raided all of the other hotel rooms of food and drinks, set up a security wall against intruders and hung a white towel from their window to attract rescuers. After seeing and hearing all of this, the reporter gathered her crew members, loaded the two women in their van and drove them out of the city and harm’s way to reunite with loved ones outside the devastated areas. The reporter -- in the way that us journalists are always trying to do, but never seem to get the credit for doing -- helped a couple fellow citizens, because nobody else would.

… the emotions poured out of me and my eyes welled up today as I told my co-workers and wife these stories … emotions I didn’t realize were so real inside me.

…I’m blessed and lucky tonight that I again could enjoy this final Friday night of summer in my home. And when we finally got our DVD player to quit malfunctioning we watched “Freaky Friday” and “Laws of Attraction”

…“Freaky Friday” was, in a word, cute. It’s no “Face Off,” but Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis weren’t bad. In fact, despite a few cheesy moments, Lohan’s acting was convincing and her comedic potential showed through. Now, if she could only turn off her snobby appearance, shut her yapper in real life and go back to being as cute and likable as she was in “The Parent Trap.”

… “Laws of Attraction” …Yeah. First of all, this was not the movie we initially picked for tonight. With a free blockbuster movie rental earlier this week I had picked out a newer release, only to be informed at the counter that the coupon was only good for an older release. It might have been better to forfeit the coupon … While the plot is somewhat fresh -- two divorce lawyers who find love in each other -- it’s never developed enough to bring in the audience. The movie had ended before it began …

Kind of like the rescue effort in New Orleans?