Month: June 2010

Gentlemen: Today you announced that there’s going to be a movie focusing on Les Grossman, the abusive, abrasive producer brilliantly played by Tom Cruise in “Tropic Thunder” (not to mention on the MTV Movie Awards.)

Four words: I am so there.

So here’s the open request: Find a way to work in a confrontation between Les Grossman and Ari Gold from “Entourage.” Jeremy Piven’s superagent squaring off against Cruise’s demented producer would be the show business showdown of a lifetime.

PAD

Check out this business card, autographed by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in which he’s apparently telling someone that “The Valley of Fear” is going to be the final outing for Sherlock Holmes, which of course it was not. I’ll bet it goes for way more than the projected $8000-$12,000. This is one of those moments where I wish I had a ton of disposable cash.

Sir Arthur’s Calling Card

In the spirit of the notion that the unexamined life is not worth living, I’m starting to rethink my devout opposition to drilling in the arctic.

This may seem like an odd time to do so considering what’s gushing in the Gulf of Mexico.  How could I possibly reverse my position when we’re seeing what an oil spill can do to the environment and the creatures that live in it?  Okay, but…anywhere there’s an oil spill, the environment’s gonna get FUBARed, right?  Shouldn’t two major considerations be (a) accessibility to the source of the leak and (b) whether people are going to be impacted as well?  I mean, yeah, an oil spill in the arctic would be a terrible thing, but at least it would be way easier to fix it.  Wouldn’t it be BETTER for the environment overall because the damage would be minimized?  Plus you don’t have people’s lives and economies going down in oil-soaked flames.

Like I said, I haven’t decided yet.  But I’m starting to see the other side of it.  I know the negatives, and I agree that the best case would be developing alternative energies.  But if the current fiasco isn’t spurring development in that direction, I’m not entirely sure how cutting off another potential source of oil is gonna do it.

Feel free to convince me one way or the other.

PAD

Get this:  Abby Nurre, a math teacher at a Catholic school in Iowa, has been fired from her job.  Is she incompetent?  Was she making sexual overtures to a student?

Nope.  She was fired because, in the privacy of her own home on her own home computer, she joined an atheist website.  And administrators at St. Edmund’s Catholic school, which seemed to feel that this was somehow their business, fired her for it.  They even want to deny her unemployment benefits.  I don’t know which is more disturbing:  That they monitored her home computer and invaded her privacy, or that they’re under the impression that one’s religious beliefs somehow impact on numbers.  Hot news flash, you idiots:  Whether Pythagoras believed in multiple gods, one god or no god, A squared plus B squared is still going to equal C squared.

I firmly believe this country is over-litigious, but I hope this woman sues their áššëš.

PAD

One of the last things air travelers will see when they go out of Denver Airport will be a twenty-six-foot statue of Anubis, the Egyptian god of Embalming and the afterlife.

What, Osiris, the god of death, wanted too much money for the recreation rights?

They couldn’t use Ra, the sun god?  Or even Nut, the god of the sky?  (“Denver:  We’re Nuts for Flying.”)

PAD