Saw Charlotte's Web yesterday. Very enjoyable, although I kept waiting to hear Paul Lynde sing about the schmorgasbord at the county fair (video link.)

There's a great soliloquy from the local doctor (played by Beau Bridges) about a spider's ability to spin its web. In essence, he says a spider web is itself a miracle -- regardless of whether the spider spells anything in the Web. Interesting point about the "miracles" we all take for granted every day.

Reminds me of quote from Einstein:

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is.

Here are some other quotes from E.B. White's book, including the one from Dr. Dorian.

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Been watching a lot of "The Price is Right" this week. A fantastic pricing game. Bob Barker will be retiring in June 2007, so I'm making sure my kids watch the show and appreciate Bob's unique skills. Check out this exhaustive wikipedia entry on the show -- good reading.

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Interesting WSJ article about the failure of the NFL in their battle vs. cable operators to garner big money for their new network.

The NFL Network saved eight pro games for itself, hoping to leverage its fledgling cable channel into millions more homes with games that weren't widely available. The NFL gambled that lessening the access to the eight games would prompt fans to complain to cable companies so more of them would carry the channel. It was a controversial move. The cable companies have complained that a vast majority of their viewers are uninterested in NFL games and would end up paying higher fees to support programming they didn't want.

The NFL Network airs its final live game of the season, Giants vs. Redskins, this Saturday.
In prior regional skirmishes, it has been the sports purveyors who usually prevailed over the cable operators. But for the seven games that have so far aired, the ratings were only average. The NFL cable network, which had hoped to get a boost to 70 million homes, remains at about 40 million.

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Click here and click on track 5 -- "Just a Friend." Haven't heard that Biz Markie tune in 15 years. 30 seconds was enough, though. No need to download the whole song. Maybe in 2031.

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Here's the wikipedia entry on the great winter holiday known as Festivus. It comes complete with this dialogue:

Frank Costanza: Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way.
Cosmo Kramer: What happened to the doll?
Frank Costanza: It was destroyed. But out of that a new holiday was born: a Festivus for the rest of us!
Cosmo Kramer: That must've been some kind of doll.
Frank Costanza: She was.

Here's wishing all our homes are deigned with a Festivus Miracle.

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They're going to remake "The Prisoner," one of the oddest shows to ever grace a television screen:

AMC has upped its commitment to original series development, announcing Tuesday that it will remake the cult British series "The Prisoner."

Although the cast has not been set, production of the one-hour series, a joint effort between AMC and the UK’s Granada and Sky One, begins in the spring.

The precursor to ABC’s Lost, the original Prisoner (1967-’68) starred Patrick McGoohan as a former secret agent who is held captive on a remote island by a sinister cabal of operatives whose motives for sequestering him are unclear. While AMC is pitching its remake as a Sci-Fi series, the original was never subject to mere genre conventions, informed as it was by game theory, paranoia and an existentialist ambiguity that had devotees scrambling for meaning throughout the course of its 17 episodes.

If you haven't seen the original, you should try to find a copy -- especially the final two episodes which featured the great British actor Leo McKern.

The show was produced at the height of the late-60s hippie, love-in, drug-raddled culture. The effect was a 17-epidode series riddled with hyper-paranoia and an all-encompassing suspicion of authority. Here's McGoohan's most famous quote from the show:

I will not make any deals with you. I've resigned. I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered! My life is my own!

Click here to read more quotes from the show.

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Pretty funny ad for DirecTV. Wonder how they got the rights to use all those characters?

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I'm not posting as much lately because Google's changed Blogger so that it takes more effort to publish a link to a Web site I'm reading. I'm just that lazy.

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Interesting article from New Scientists on new Web-based addictions such as the "Wikipediholic," who can't stop tweaking and editing the entries. Read also about the "photolurker" who scours photo websites to browse other people's photo albums. I don't even want to talk about the cheesepodders, Google-stalkers, and a cyberchondriacs

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Here's a response to that Dove film about the distortion of beauty in our society. Pretty funny.

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Apparently, the new "Rocky" movie is not as bad as you might think:

There's a disarming quality to Stallone's thoughtful script that has a way of stopping smirking skeptics right in their tracks, as if to say: "Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking. But at least give me a shot here."

And darned if that gently self-effacing approach doesn't melt away those preconceived notions.

But I still don't think I'll race out to see it.

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Click here to read the Top 10 creepiest restaurant chain mascots.

Not sure how the Shoney's Big Boy eluded this list.

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Hey, I love South Park as much as the next guy, but I'm not going to encourage my kids to watch it by buying them a giant Cartman slipper.

To whom is this marketed exactly?

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I'm absolutely not in favor of this:

The Federal Trade Commission yesterday said that companies engaging in word-of-mouth marketing, in which people are compensated to promote products to their peers, must disclose those relationships.

A clear encroachment of my First Amendment rights.

By the way, I believe I've fixed the banner ad for that Luke & Laura ring. Can everyone see it now?

I think I'll still be able to receive the ring in time for Christmas if I order it now. But, I must act fast. I'll need to click here to make my purchase.

(Hat tip: Brad Warbiany)

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I don't know about you guys but I'm thinking about buying one of these Luke & Laura commemoration rings. They're just 60 bucks at Sears. I'm thinking the wifey would love one. They look fantastic.

You can just follow the link from that giant advertisement at the top of the blog. Yeah, the one just above my name up there. Yeah, with the picture of Luke & Laura on the left side. Yep, that banner ad.

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So, classic works of literature are being condensed for cell-phone reading. Apparently, there's a brisk market for it -- college students looking to cram for an exam, for instance. I would hold my nose at such action, but I scanned a Cliffs Notes or two back in my salad days.

Here's the summation of the ending of Jane Eyre:

MadwyfSetsFyr2Haus

Short and sweet.

Here's the site offering the classics.

(Hat tip: Matt Kerlin)

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Isn't this counterintuitive? The gas prices getting higher from right-to-left rather than left-to-right. Wonder how many consumers filled up with premium by mistake because they assumed the one on the left was the cheapest?

Not me, baby. Not me.

I don't know about you all, but I'm getting tired of The Man trying to rip me off.

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The new Spiderman movie looks awesome. I had to read the wikipedia entry to beef up on my Spiderman knowledge. Apparently that villian is appropriately known as Sandman. He's an interesting character, according to his lengthy wikipedia entry:

Morally, Sandman is a complex character. Throughout his criminal career, he possessed an affinity for his ailing mother. He reformed and joined the superhero group the Avengers and the Wild Pack of Silver Sable. He has since returned to a life of crime but resists the extreme methods and actions of typical supervillains, rarely killing anyone ... He possesses superhuman strength several times in excess of Spider-Man's, making him an equal to the Thing.

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It's been a long time since I heard the theme song to The Bloodhound Gang.

If you're unfamiliar with this mid-80s PBS gem, read the Wikipedia entry.

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The Seminole Tribe of Florida bought the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino chain yesterday. Here's a great quote:

You’re here for a special day in Seminole history,” said Max B. Osceola Jr., a Seminole council representative. “Our ancestors sold Manhattan for trinkets. We’re going to buy Manhattan back, one burger at a time."

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Never knew there was a name for this:

A cold open (also referred to as a teaser) in a television program or movie is the technique of jumping directly into a story at the beginning or opening of the show, before the title sequence or opening credits are shown. Shows which air some form of titles before jumping into the story and then running a formal opening sequence are also considered cold opens.

Via Wikipedia, of course.

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There was a time when my libertarian leanings would find this objectionable:

Food and beverage companies took another lashing for their purported role in contributing to the childhood obesity crisis this week when the American Academy of Pediatrics called on Congress and the Federal Communications Commission to impose limits on TV ads targeting children.

The Chicago-based AAP, a group of 60,000 primary care doctors who specialize in infants, children and adolescents, published its sweeping recommendations in the December issue of Pediatrics. The report examined advertising in all media, including television, Internet and movies, plus various kid-marketing tactics and health-related concerns over consumption of tobacco, alcohol and drugs.

The conclusion: 'Advertising represents 'big business' in the United States and can have a significant effect on young people,' the report noted. 'Advertisements can be restricted or even banned if there is significant public health risk. Cigarette and alcohol advertising would seem to fall squarely into this category, and ads for junk food could easily be restricted.'

These obesity-inducing foods are more deadly than cigarettes. If we can ban the advertising of cigarettes, then why not Twinkies. For the public good, and all that.

At the least, we should have a public debate about this. I think you could make a strong argument that other people's obesity makes make my taxes and insurance rise -- the same argument for making everyone wear their seatbelt.

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From the Onion:

I first strapped on the apron at a little eight-aisle place in downtown Tempe—a dusty hell of a city where the damned stalked the aisles. But just because it's a godforsaken sandpit doesn't mean its cans aren't placed on the bottom and cartons of eggs on top. And for the next few years, that was my life.

That's comedy.

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Interesting article in USA Today about Wyoming targeting Michigan for workers. Their biggest problem: Playing down Wyoming winters:

We want to make sure we target states that make sense,' Emmons says. 'People think of Wyoming as having really hard winters. It really doesn't. … But it wouldn't make sense to recruit people from Florida.'

Michigan may be a perfect target area. It's a state where winter lasts for five or six months. And its unemployment rate was 6.9% in October, the highest in the nation. Wyoming's rate was 3.3%. The national average was 4.4%.

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I agree. Norman Borlaug deserves a Congressional Gold Medal.

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This is pretty egregious:

One of the worst product placements I've ever seen was on CBS' CSI:NY. In an episode last year, Detective Messer was running between crime scenes when his cell phone suddenly began playing 'Talk' by Coldplay.

He then turned to his partner and said something like, 'Hey, that's my new Cingular ringtone.' Not surprisingly, the next ad break featured a commercial in which viewers were offered a chance to buy the very same ringtone.

Interesting article about this rising phenonemon. I'm sure we can expect more of this as we Americans increasingly tune out commercials with our high-fangled DVRs.

Earlier this season, "The Office" featured a conspicuous product placement of a Staples document shreader. I wasn't annoyed, but I certainly didn't go out to buy one. Of course, the fact that I remember the brand probably speaks to its efficacy.

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I've written before about my disenchantment with Bratz, but the following items take the cake.

Take a look at the packaging for the "Bratz Play Sportz" dolls I saw tonight while Christmas shopping:

Here's the back:

"Bratz are rockin' their all-time favorite sports -- showin' the world that it's not just about how you play, but about how hot you look when you win!"

What a lovely message for little girls everywhere.

What have we wrought?

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Some interesting theories on the radiation poisoning of that former Russian KGB agent:

Mr. Epstein figures there are two possible ways Litvinenko got poisoned. One is that he was murdered when "someone surreptitiously sprinkled particles of Polonium 210 in his food." The second hypothesis is that it was an accident, in which "the particles leaked out of a faulty container of Polonium 210 that he (or his associates) were carrying."

Mr. Epstein reckons that "a former KGB agent might have a interest in obtaining a smuggled sample of Polonium 210 for a host of reasons, including arranging a sale to an intermediary, establishing the bona fides of someone claiming to have access to a Russian nuclear facility, or investigating the international black market in nuke components.

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