Tiger Better Fess Up

By now, everyone within range of a TV or radio knows that Tiger Woods had some kind of "incident" over the holiday weekend. The official story is that at 2:30am, Woods was backing out of his driveway and ran into a tree and a fire hydrant, injuring himself. His wife supposedly had to break his rear windshield with a golf club to pull him out of the vehicle, and when the police arrived, they found Woods lying in the street, bloody and incoherent. with his wife "standing over him."

Riiiight.

Before any of the inevitable rumors began to swirl, I had my doubts. First I thought, "Tiger Woods had an accident at 2:30 in the morning? Backing up? What was he trying to get away from?" Then I heard more details. Facial injuries, wife with golf club. Immediately, I figured, he wasn't injured from the accident, his wife went upside his head with that golf club. After all, if he injured himself that badly backing up, he would have had to stomp on the gas pedal, meaning at least he would have pulled the hydrant out of the ground (I've seen it happen) and/or possibly backed into -- or through! -- whatever was across from his driveway.

Then it came out that Mrs. Tiger had read a National Inquirer report of her husband having an affair with a woman in New York. That would definitely be a rationale for her working him over with a golf club or whatever. These days the Inquirer has to be taken more seriously than in years past; after all, they stuck to their guns with the John Edwards paternity story, and turned out to be correct.

Eldrick Woods is, and has always been, a private person. I can respect that; I treasure my privacy as well. But Tiger better put aside the worries about his image and just fess up to whatever it is he's so afraid of the police finding out, and just answer their questions. The best way to make the story go away is to tell it. But continuing to stick to an obvious fable, and continuing to hold off the police, will just prolong the publicity until the truth comes out anyway, maybe bringing along with it something else the Woodses would like to keep private.

EDIT: Of course, now more women are stepping up and saying that they've had affairs with Tiger Woods, one even supplying a voicemail recording of Woods asking her to remove her name from her phone so it won't show up in his cell phne's call logs  when she calls, because his wife had checked his phone and seen the name. And, typically, Woods is throwing money around to all involved, including his wife, in the hopes that it will keep everyone in their respective lanes.

I will never understand the mindset of someone who apparently values image above reality. Woods is apparently rewriting his prenuptial agreement with his wife to give her more money if (well, basically "when") she leaves but giving her more to stick around for a couple more years. Reminds me of a movie I saw parts of a few years ago, "Love Don't Cost a Thing," starring Nick Cannon and Christina Milian. Tiger comes off as a lot nerdier (and maybe needier?) than Nick here, because Nick's character didn't pay millions to Christina's cool-girl character to pretend to be his girlfriend, the way Tiger's paying Elin millions to stick around and pretend to be his loving wife. (Take note of the title, Tiger; whatever you're paying for ain't love.)

Interesting note from UrbanDictionary.com, in its definition of Kobe Special, named after the ring NBA player (ha!) Kobe Bryant bought his wife after being caught cheating:

Jewelry bought by husbands to appease their angry wives. Usually, the anger concerns extramarital skank diddling on the side. In normal households, a gift of jewelry like this would solve nothing; it would be seen as the empty and loveless gesture that it is. However, in the lives of the rich and famous, empty materialism covers all sins and fixes all problems because they have no souls.

Bernazard Must Go!

I said in another post, back when Willie Randolph was fired, that Tony Bernazard should be next. That his successful efforts to undermine Randolph's authority as manager demonstrated that he had no idea how to conduct team business in a professional manner. But now reports that he ripped off his shirt and challenged members of the Mets' Double-A affiliate in Binghamton to a fight should be the last straw. (See story)

The Mets are doing a good enough job of being the butt of jokes that they don't need team execs adding fuel to the fire. The man has gotten way too much benefit from all the doubt. Fire him, Omar, or whoever his boss is. (Which is another confusing point with the Mets' organization: Bernazard is a VP and the general manager is his boss?)

With the farm teams doing as badly as the Mets, or even worse, it's understandable that Bernazard would be frustrated or even angry. But still there are lines that should not be crossed, and Bernazard stomped all over the line before jumping over it. Get rid of him!

Clowns Packing Up Albany Circus?

First off, I apologize to any actual clowns or circus performers who may read this and be offended by my decision to characterize the warring New York State senators as clowns. I did not mean to offend your noble profession...

So it's beginning to look and sound like the circus (Bungling Brothers/Empire State Circus) that's been preoccupying the New York State Senate for the past five weeks has finally run its course, with the renegade Democrats Hiram Momserrate Jr. and Pedro Espada finally settling down and dancing with what brung 'em, as the saying goes. Espada has been making a pitiful attempt to frame this as something other than a power play. But he went from an apparently unhappy Democratic senator voting Democratic, to a Democratic senator voting Republican and being appointed Senate Majority Leader by the Republicans, to voting Democratic and being appointed Senate Majority Leader by the Democrats. It's bad enough that he's deluded enough to be clearly unfit for public office, but does he really think anyone else outside of Albany (and Syracuse, where deluded billionaire Tom Golisano lives) shares his delusion?

I say fire all of 'em. Monserrate, Espada, Dean Skelos, everyone who was part of this plot that paralyzed government and cost the state, counties, and municipal governments millions and millions of dollars, while they argued over whose (majority) was bigger. But, of course, they can't just be fired, since they were elected. But they can be denied the opportunity of being rehired (re-elected) when the next terms come up. The people these miscreants represent should make it clear that they shouldn't even waste their time thinking about running for re-election.

But that's not all.

I say, total up the apparent losses to all the affected jurisdictions, and make them pay. Better yet, since billionaire Tom Golisano has nothing better to do with his time than muck up government for his own amusement by instigating political coups, prosecute him for obstruction of government services and make him foot the bill. He has the money, and if the forces lined up against him (there are almost 20 million people in New York State) exert enough pressure, he'll have no choice but to pay up and, in the future, mind his own business and stop using the state government as his own personal sandbox to play with as he pleases.

Them's my two cents...

Let Him Be

It's over, call it a day
Sorry that it had to end this way
No reason to pretend
We knew it had to end someday
This way
(Written by Nat Kipler / John McIntyre Vallins)

Johnny Mathis sang those words 30 years ago but he could easily have been singing about the circus the media has created around the Michael Jackson situation.

Personally, I stopped really being a "fan" back in the late 80s/ early 90s, when Michaelmania was in full swing. The easiest way to turn me away from something is to assert its popularity, and no one could doubt MJ's popularity in those days. I did manage to come into possession of his Off the Wall album -- yes, an actual vinyl album -- though I didn't buy it, I borrowed it and then the owner gave it to me while preparing to move. I really am sorry his life had to end the way it did, going into cardiac arrest of all things.

That drugs were somehow involved, though, was not much of a surprise to me, once it sank in that he really had died, that the news was not yet another Internet hoax. After all, it was reported far and wide that he had fired his kids' nanny, Grace Rwaramba (sp?), after she had tried to arrange an intervention over his drug use. The stated reason for the firing wasn't slander (accusing him of something untrue with malicious intent) but betrayal (airing business that was supposed to remain private), a tacit admission that he'd had a problem. And being surrounded by yes-people from that point on could only mean more and more of the same. The only mystery was if he would wise up and kick the habits (yes, the plural is intentional) or if he would succumb to them. We now know the answer...

But now that Michael Jackson, who has been treated anew like a personified media event rather than a person, has passed away and is soon to be buried, let's let him rest. So what if he cut his children's mother and his own father out of his will? What business is that of ours?

So what if his financial matters are a tangled web? That money is already well-earmarked, and the scrutiny that the press wants to give it won't change anything.

So what if he wasn't the biological father of the two oldest children? He may not have been the father but he was definitely the Daddy, which in the end mattered much more to those kids.

So what if he was alleged to have molested kids? First off, they were just that -- allegations -- from people who seemed more concerned about payment than justice. And what if they were true? I don't at all condone molestation or harassment of any kind, but come on, the man's dead. Let him rest without having to rehash the seedier stretches of his past. Pete King, a New York politician, expressed his frustration with all the press coverage Jackson's death has garnered, and I can sympathize with the frustration one hundred percent. But why did his statement have to include characterizing Jackson as a child molester, pedophile, and "lowlife"? If King had to vent, it should have been at the media outlets pumping up Jackson's passing to pump up their own ratings so they can make more money off soap commercials and liquor ads. Calling a dead man names is no better than digging in the sewer for sludge to throw at the hearse as it passes on the way to the funeral. I have real reason to doubt King would stoop to that in action, so why do it in words?

And now, of course, the merchandising machine is revving up, churning out CDs and DVDs and books and magazines and any kind of tacky souvenir someone would be willing to buy. And, if Tupac Shakur's situation (and Elvis Presley's) is any indication, it won't be long before some deluded fans and even a so-called investigator or two claims that "Michael Jackson is not really dead! He faked his death because [fill in your preferred rationale here]!!" The rational I'd pick is the number of unreleased recordings that will come out. One of the major beefs that the more vocal disgruntled recording artists have with the industry is how much unreleased music the labels hold onto, waiting for artists to either die or hit it big down the road with another label.

Whatever thoughts people have about Michael Jackson, what he accomplished, what he was accused of, what he could have accomplished if he'd done things differently, it doesn't change what has happened. He has come to the end of his road.

Let him be.

Alex Rodriguez and Steroids

I'm already tired of all the hand-wringing over A-Rod and his admission that he took steroids, supposedly for only three years while he was playing for the Texas Rangers. OK, it is now and was then a banned substance, but at that time there was no penalty. So why try to whip up grounds to punish him now?

But I have to admit I'm disappointed.

After the furor whipped up by the New York sports media over Mets' then-GM Steve Phillips passing on the chance to trade A-Rod back when the Rangers were shopping him around -- saying that Rodriguez wanted perks that would have created a team of 24+1 -- I started to sour on A-Rod. Before that I had kind of liked him, but as he basked in the glow of both the $25-million-plus he was getting paid plus the "glory" of being with the Yankees, he became really irritating with his obsession with being seen in the best light by the media and the fans. Now I guess we all know why...

But I'm disappointed because, although I had come to dislike Rodriguez, I got the impression that he really was clean. I've even gone on record on this blog, in earlier messages on the Bonds situation, praising Rodriguez for being clean. Now that he's admitted to juicing, it raises a lot more questions:

• Was he really using for only those three years?
• Why did this supposedly confidential information get out? Who put his name out there? Why now, so much later?
• What other supposedly confidential info from that survey is about to come out?
• How does baseball think it will get cooperation from players in any other matter that's supposed to be confidential?
• When will these overpaid-idiot players realize that they're under so much scrutiny because the leaders of their union have always pushed them to refuse to cooperate with investigations? The word is that they're scared of Don Fehr and Gene Orza, but let's face it, if enough of the players want them out, what power do Fehr and Orza really have?

I, for one, will be glad when this whole mess is over, and we're no longer hearing about steroids in baseball -- or in any sport, for that matter.

Hookers and Cheaters and Britney, Oh My!

I'm back. Sorry if it looked like I'd abandoned this blog...

Spitzer and Paterson

By now everyone on the planet knows about former New York State governor Eliot Spitzer and his foolishness with high-priced prostitutes and with money-laundering, both on his own end (moving money between accounts to avoid triggering bank secrecy procedures) and in his dealings with the escort service that got him busted (paying a shell company that was under surveillance). He is both a former prosecutor and a former state attorney general, so I think it's fair to say that he couldn't possibly have been any dumber in how he went about his business.

All concerned parties in Albany breathed a sigh of relief at the prospect of dealing with the incoming governor, Spitzer's lieutenant governor David Paterson. But now it's come out that Paterson and his wife have both had affairs in the not-so-distant past. Since he came out with it -- actually they both admitted to having cheated -- it shouldn't really be a major issue, though of course the media is going to milk every drop of coverage they can wring out of it. A greater issue, maybe, is that he misused campaign funds at various times, usually reimbursing the payments later. So what? What politician hasn't dipped into the till and then repaid it later? The crime, when there is one, is using taxpayer funds, or campaign funds, for personal things and then not reporting or repaying. But, as was pointed out today, there are probably plenty of people not at all happy that the man at the top of New York State's government is black. If they can find something, anything, that might discredit him, they could consider it worth their while to fling it at him and see what happens.

That includes today's page 5 article in the New York Daily News on Paterson's past experiments with drugs. There were "whispers" circulating Albany about his past drug use, so he admitted to having used marijuana and cocaine a few times. This was in the 70s, when he was in his early 20s. The man is 53 now. Let it rest.

Or would those same folks rather have to deal with... Governor Joe Bruno, with the potential to be the Republican version of the Democrat "bulldog" Spitzer?

And on top of all this, it now comes out that some political sleazebag (his own self-description) named Stone now claims that he was the one that tipped the Feds off to Spitzer's wrongdoing while he was being paid consultant's fees of $20K a month by Bruno and other Republicans. But -- get this -- Stone claims also that, although Spitzer was in the middle of a smear campaign against Bruno, he
did not tell Bruno about the Spitzer dirt he mailed off to the Feds.

And this is someone with no sense of loyalty (but what sleazebag is ever loyal?) -- he hates Bruno's top aide so much that, even though he considers Bruno his mentor, he'd "happily" bring Bruno down if that's what it takes to put the aide out of the picture.

And they call "Kristin" a whore...

(Except for this line, I don't think Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick deserves even a mention here. "Liar liar," etc.)

Get Your Britney Fix Here

I'm not one to join the Britney Spears media pileon, especially since I'm NOT member of the media, but it's interesting that Britney decided to start her "artistic reputation rehab," as NY Daily News entertainment writer David Hinkley puts it, by taking a cameo role in a sitcom. In this case, "How I Met Your Mother." I've never watched the show, and didn't get a chance to see it last night, but by all accounts she did good. Let's see what happens next...

Chickens coming home to roost?

So the Feds have finally made some kind of case against Barry Bonds. I know, as it has been pointed out numerous times before, that there has not yet been a positive steroids test result -- but based on my own experiences from taking a corticosteroid that's medically necessary due to transplant surgery, he shows all the signs of steroids use, at least in the past. He missed an entire season and all but fourteen games of another due to knee problems, right in the same period of time that he had bulked up and almost doubled his yearly home-run output, and joint problems (usually knees, hips, or shoulders) are a hallmark of steroid use. (My experience is having to have hip surgery -- not a replacement -- after only nine months of everyday use of prednisone, an anti-inflammatory medication. Not the same as what Bonds is alleged to have taken; his "meds" are much worse on that score.) No telling when the IRS will turn its attention to his tax-evasion case...

Derek Cheater?

Not only are the Feds after Bonds, but now the New York State income tax officials have turned their attention to Derek Jeter, New York Yankees shortstop, who is accused of not paying three years worth of taxes and claiming he lived in Florida while actually living in New York.

At a salary of $20 million per year, Jeter can definitely afford to pay his fair share of taxes, so I don't know why this should even have to be an isssue. If it's true, that is; there's always a chance that the state is overzealous and that Jeter's claims of being a Florida resident are accurate. But if it is true, then it looks like just another example of an athlete thinking that, because of what they do and all the money they make, they're invincible. (Look at OJ, who's about to go away for a long, long time.)

Journey of a Thousand Miles

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Today I start my journey.

• I am now 42 years old, and I'm renting a bedroom in a friend's apartment because at the moment that is all I can afford, though I've been working for 24 years now.
• I just negotiated what I hope will be an acceptable payment schedule with a law office representing a collection agency representing a bank that took over another bank that I opened a credit card account with twelve years ago. The balance is three times the set credit limit of the account I opened, because of long-standing delinquencies. From that time until now I could probably have paid the account many times over, except for a very old habit of letting things go until, and often way past, the last minute.
• Because of this longstanding habit, my credit rating is somewhere in the 400s. I'm driving a six-year old car that was probably meant to last only five, and only God knows what will happen when it needs major repairs, or when it gives out completely and I try to get another car.

With all that said, I'm stating my goal now: to buy a house. It won't happen this year, or next. It may not happen until sometime in the next decade, if then. In all likelyhood it will be a repossessed or foreclosed house, a fixer-upper, or something along those lines. And it may even turn out to be, not a house, but a condo or a co-op apartment. And it may very well turn out to be somewhere outside the NYC area, where I was born and have lived all my life. But I'm making it my goal to get a house or something owned in my own name in order to significantly improve my financial situation. I don't want to be rich, but it's time for a change.

I'm tired of just scraping by.

I've been saying that to myself for some time now, but now I will start putting myself on the spot by saying it to others. The part about buying a house I may keep to myself for awhile...

I've also been saying for years that I wanted to start some kind of business, and I've researched just about every manner of business that could be started and run by mail-order and possibly online, but up until now really haven't taken any steps to put the research to work and get something, anything, off the ground. Today, that changes.

What prompted this decision? Well, it’s been on my mind for awhile now due to the chronic near-brokeness, for one thing. But the decision kind of made itself last night, while I was out driving around and around my new neighborhood trying to find somewhere to park. I was thinking, "if I had my own house, with a garage or at least a driveway, I wouldn't have to be out here wasting time circling the neighborhood looking for a space."

In any situation you can never predict just what the "last straw" will turn out to be, but I think that was it. When I was in my former neighborhood, I had the same problem, since only about every third house had a driveway or garage. I swore that my next apartment would be somewhere with more parking. That didn't happen.

But it will.

T.I. = I.D.I.O.T.

His lawyer says there are two sides to every story. Yeah, his client's and the truth. Anyone should know that a convicted felon is asking for trouble when he tries to buy, not just handguns, but machine guns and silencers. I don't claim to know all the details, but even if it was a setup, he deserves whatever he gets for falling for it.

GEICO Cavemen's Self-Help Book

We all know by now about the GEICO cavemen now having their own show. A sitcom set in Atlanta, which has me wondering if they're supposed to represent blacks, or gays, or both. Now they have a self-help book out -- I saw it in Barnes & Noble last night -- called "Keep Chewing Until It Stops Moving."

Reposted responses:

T-Mc, Sep 21 2007, 03:03 PM
Are you saying Atlanta is filled with Blacks and Gays?

Me, 9/24, 02:36 AM
Well, Atlanta has been a Black American Mecca for a long time now. And it has gained a reputation, maybe unfairly I don't know, of being a haven for closeted gays. At least this is what Wendy Williams would have us believe, but an old friend of mine down there has me wondering if there's something to it after all. And on the commercials the cavemen do seem rather... genteel... (Not that being genteel is a bad thing.)

They could easily have put the cavemen in NYC or LA. Remember that the Men In Black series put the aliens in NYC because they said it would be the easiest place to blend in and in LA, the cavemen could pass themselves off as "practicing for a part." But the show's synopsis says the cavemen are supposed to be trying to make their way in the face of prejudice and stereotypes.

The moderator at the Jazzyville forum where I had originally posted this thought it should be posted in a blog so more people could see it, and maybe comment... ?

Race in a Bottle

Drugmakers are eager to develop medicines targeted at ethnic groups, but so far they have made poor choices based on unsound science

Two years ago, on June 23, 2005, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first “ethnic” drug. Called BiDil (pronounced “bye-dill”), it was intended to treat congestive heart failure—the progressive weakening of the heart muscle to the point where it can no longer pump blood efficiently—in African-Americans only. The approval was widely declared to be a significant step toward a new era of personalized medicine, an era in which pharmaceuticals would be specifically designed to work with an individual’s particular genetic makeup. Known as pharmacogenomics, this approach to drug development promises to reduce the cost and increase the safety and efficacy of new therapies. BiDil was also hailed as a means to improve the health of African-Americans, a community woefully underserved by the U.S. medical establishment. Organizations such as the Association of Black Cardiologists and the Congressional Black Caucus strongly supported the drug’s approval.

A close inspection of BiDil’s history, however, shows that the drug is ethnic in name only...
Click here to read the rest of the article

Man's smelly feet trigger police raid

Article

I've known some smelly-feet people but I don't think I've ever come across someone whose feet inspired a call to the local police station!

This Slim is in Fat City in more ways than one

Mexico's richest man casts controversial shadow -- article no longer found...

...but according to a more recent article, Carlos Slim is now the world's richest man.

Bill Gates Ousted; Carlos Slim Now Holds World's Fattest Wallet, Report Says

Sick Health Care System

It didn't just become news when Michael Moore said it, but he's right. The health care system in the United States needs fixing. Whenever your level of care depends on what a supervisor at an insurance company is willing to allow, rather than what trained medical personnel (and the patient!) deem necessary, something needs to be done. And when the time of day can have life-or-death effect on your level of care in a hospital, changes need to be made...

Seattle Times review of Sicko

Night Shift Nightmare (Reader's Digest)

I can vouch for the differences in the level of care, not only between the day and night shifts, but also between the intensive care unit staff and the "regular" nursing staff. I was in ICU and, well, constipated for the whole time I was there. On the evening of the fifth day, I was transferred to a regular room, and when I told the duty nurse that I was consipated and had been since I got there, she gave me this stuff that looked like chocolate milk and smelled (and probably tasted) like nail polish remover. It did the trick, though, but not until the next morning. Unfortunately, that was when someone was going around taking patients' temperature and blood pressure. The nurse came around, found I was still in the bathroom, and went ballistic! Like my whole reason for being in there was less important than their need to follow procedure. (Granted, blood pressure problems was part of the reason I was there, but still...)

The woman taking the readings, for her part, was quite understanding, but I'd expect a nurse to have been a bit more understanding. After all, she has had medical training and is supposed to play a part in putting the patient at ease.

Though it turned out that the stuff they gave me to get me "moving" again (they called it a "black and white"; I have no idea what was in it) was NOT supposed to be given to me because of the nature of my particular problem. The nurse had reacted to my complaint, but without checking into what my medical issue was. And again, this was a night-shift nurse.

Not to put down the night shift -- I know they're called on to do more work, since there are fewer people on hand after dark. But, still, it's not too much to expect them to do a thorough job no matter what. And my story isn't anything like the one in the Reader's Digest article...

When the Past Comes to Visit

Reposted from a Yahoo mailing list related to writing...

One of the strange aspects of web publishing is that it's ethereal. Unlike books, where the public can usually get their hands on an original edition. How many hard print authors would like to expunge their earlier works if only they could? A lot, I bet. Well, I can to some degree, and I've been exercising that right to date. But I probably won't forever. It's just going to take a lot of work to sort out and remove references to some early writers, artists and models who have asked to be 'edited out' of the history, or I have chosen to remove. That's the real work -- honoring those wishes.

Of course, as all the Myspace and other social network participants are about to find out, it's hard to totally remove your presence from the Net. How many people in their 40's to 60's are going to be haunted by strangeness they posted on Myspace in their teens or twenties? A lot. Especially given that everything on the net has been archived since the relatively recent arrival of the likes of Google. I've read that they have vast disk farms which will allow future wayback machinery to dig it all out as a function of time, even if the system today is clearly focused on caching and delivery current content. That old stuff, uncounted terabytes of content, is getting stored. Future detectives are going to have some very interesting and rewarding work (like publishing something in 2038 about a congressional candidate's Myspace postings in 2006).

Imagine if the detailed records of our current politician's activites in the Frat house in the 1960's or 70's was possible to dig out? Down to every girlfriend, every drug taken, every beer consumed, not to mention their immature thoughts about
everything imaginable. Every forgettable event and mistake in their lives. Despite pseudonyms, real identities aren't hard to figure out. A person's foolish youthhood should be forgotten and forgiven, not recorded in intimate detail forever. But I guess the Myspace bloggers will also represent most of the voters and journalists eventually, so maybe that strangeness will just be accepted as part of the culture. But that seems hard to believe today.

When I asked Shadar, the original poster, for his OK to repost this here, this was his reply:

Feel free to echo my comments into any forum you wish... although please attribute it to me as you indicate below. I suspect you might get some heated discussions out of it on some forums.

Digital culture is changing so fast its impossible to predict the future, but I do know that I'm glad I (and more importantly everyone else) has forgotten most of the insanity of my first 25 years on this planet. Also that I've never had to explain away any of that stuff in an interview because it was never recorded (we're talking 1960's and 70's). . Privacy and the forgetfulness of time are wonderful, wonderful things. People could re-invent themselves, and unless you had a criminal record (those were recorded for all time), then the 'old self' disappeared to be be replaced by the new.

And our ideas definitely change during our lifetime.

Problem with digital is that its all there staring at you forever... every single bit. Even if you erase it, if it left your PC, odds are somebody's else is keeping it. And now we have Google's disk farms recording (or about to record) the entire friggin' world. Ouch.

I'm glad to see a blog post about "booming systems"

I actually thought about looking into making LL Cool J's "The Boomin' System" or "Cheesy Rat Blues" play in the background for this post page...

http://www.eie.fceia.unr.edu.ar/~acustica/biblio/boom.htm

Smells Like Mass Media 3

I came across a story online (lost the URL) saying that Angelina Jolie is looking to 'rescue another baby from an atmosphere of terrible strife.' Word is the baby she has in mind is Sean Preston Federline.

Syndicated radio host Wendy Williams, among others, have expressed surprise that Britney Spears apparently expected some behavior from her husband other than what she's getting. Common sense says that if he cheated on someone else by seeing you, it's only a matter of time before he cheats on you by seeing someone else. What goes around, comes around. Shar Jackson must be laughing and gloating all the way to the bank -- she reportedly has a reality show in the works.

Then again, who doesn't? Even rapper DMX showed up in court for his sentencing appointment (late, and with an attitude) with reality-show cameras in tow. Of course, DMX's fifteen minutes of fame have expired, which probably explains why he stays in trouble with the law, so that his name can stay in the papers just a little bit longer.

Earlier this week, the comic strip Blondie had a gag about reality shows. Dagwood was watching a reality show where contestants were locked in a room and fed a constant diet of nothing but reality shows on TV. When each had all they could take, they would run screaming from the room, trying to get out. The last one in the room would be declared the winner. It's probably only a matter of time before someone tries that idea for real...

None of the reality-show producers seem to be aware of the scientific principle that an observer cannot fail to have an effect on the thing being observed. The only way any of these shows could be "reality" would be to conceal the cameras from the contestants. Because once they see them, they're more aware of how they look to potential onlookers, which will naturally affect their actions.

Of course, when there are no more potential onlookers -- that is, when TV viewers have started staying away from reality TV in droves -- we'll finally get relief from this broadcast infestation. Until then, as always, we'll find other things to do...

Shat Overboard!

ABC has gone overboard in advertising William Shatner's new game show, Show Me the Money! Especially when every sentence finds ways to stick the first syllable of Shatner into legitimate words like "fantastic" and "outrageous."

Here's word from others who agree:

• Things That Make Me Die Inside, part 4 (Entertainment Weekly Popwatch)
• Dancing with the Stars Finale: Touchdown! (obviously not really about Shat, but check the fourth paragraph after Emmitt's photo)

Kool Aid Fools

Remember the Mickey D clown car? Well, here's a couple of fools for Kool Aid. I hope they have endorsements or sponsorships or something to show for this...

Send in the clowns!

The other day, a coworker was telling a story about a family who had appeared on Family Feud or some such show, and it happens they were a family of professional... clowns. Once another coworker I'll call J heajrd the reference to clowns, she just started cracking up laughing for no apparent reason. She didn't even know herself just what she found so funny about a family of clowns, except she did offer this: "Say you're bringing your boyfriend or girlfriend to meet your family for the first time and he or she asks, 'So what do you do?' and the answer comes back, 'We're clowns...'" after which she broke up again. The girl telling the story made sure to emphsize CLOWN everytime she got to that word, just for the reaction, and every time she did J would just dissolve into laughter. I happened to mention the scene in the Charlie Sheen movie "The Chase" where Charlie's character is trying to convince his "hostage" that he's really innocent of the crime he'd been convicted of (just before he accidentally kidnapped her), and the story involves a children's birthday party where he's dressed as a clown. J managed to get "I remember that!" out before cracking up again.

So, the next day, I thought I'd try to put her at ease, especially since her next-cubicle neighbor was still at it. "Don't worry, J, I won't try to get laughs out of you like I did yesterday afternoon," I said in my most soothing voice. "You don't have to worry, 'cause Homey don't play dat."