Lightning McQueen Cake

Orlando's birthday party was today. The cake came out beautiful! Great job by his great aunts on all the food and decorations.

America - The Quizzes

You Belong in the USA

Sweet! People either love you or hate you And you really don't care what anyone thinks Big and bold, you do things your way

What English Speaking Country Are You?

You Are 90% "Average American"

You are average because you don't think people should be jailed for using marijuana. You are not average since you have (at least) a college degree.

How "Average American" Are You?

You Passed the US Citizenship Test

Congratulations - you got 9 out of 10 correct!

Could You Pass the US Citizenship Test?

True

Such a classic.

Ukrainian Swimming Coach Attacks Daughter

From the Denver Post:

Melbourne, Australia - Ukraine team official Mihail Zubkov was suspended by world swimming authorities today for assaulting his daughter Kateryna, a swimmer, at the world championships.

FINA's temporary ban bars Zubkov from working as a coach or official under its jurisdiction until a final decision has been made, following an appeal by his lawyer.

In TV footage captured on Tuesday, Zubkov was shown scuffling with his 20-year-old daughter, Kateryna Zubkova, at Rod Laver Arena.

Zubkov, who is Kateryna's coach, was stripped of his accreditation at the event and banned by Australian officials from making any contact with his daughter. He is due to appear at Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Thursday, where police will seek to extend an intervention order - forbidding Zubkov from going within 200 meters of his daughter - until he leaves Australia at the end of the week.

What an asshole that guy is!!

Read more...

So Sick

I am so sick of Sanjaya. Whew!

I never watched American Idol before this season, but my fifteen-year-old cousin got me into it while she was visiting from Panama. At first Sanjaya was kinda funny, but it's getting out of hand now. He seemed a little arrogant on the last show, like he's believing his own hype.

Still, I kinda hope he goes all the way and wins so Simon is totally pissed off. That's worth seeing.

The Return of Danny Almonte

Just when I thought we'd never again hear from Danny Almonte, that Dominican kid that pitched a perfect game in the Little League World Series when he was too old, here's the latest -- he's finally signed a minor league deal.

From CBS Sportsline.com:

MARION, Ill. -- Pitcher Danny Almonte, who gained notoriety for playing in the 2001 Little League World Series at the age of 14, has signed a deal with the Southern Illinois Miners.

The 20-year-old Almonte is the ninth pitcher to join the Miners.

"There are not too many young lefties with his quality of stuff sitting out there," Miners manager Mike Pinto said in a statement Tuesday. "He has a 90s-plus fastball and an excellent slider. From our conversations, Danny is a quiet and shy young man who just wants a chance to showcase his talents."

He may yet find his way to the Bronx.

Read more...

What's up...

What's up with this guy's head??

This is Dr. Joshua Perper, the medical examiner for Broward County, FL. He just released the autopsy report for Anna Nicole Smith today and told everyone what we already knew -- she overdosed.

I couldn't stop staring at his head. It looks like a horn!

Family Watchdog

If you want to creep yourself out, go to FamilyWatchdog.us and check out the list of registered sex offenders in your zip code.

According to this site, there are 876 in my neighborhood. WTF? That has to be wrong.

UPDATE: Okay, I read the map wrong. There are only 25 rapists within a 5 block radius. Twelve of them live in the same building. The 876 figure may be for the entire borough.

Orlando's Big Day

Orlando's first birthday is coming up! His party theme is the Disney movie Cars. We ordered a bunch of stuff from Birthday Express and got a Lightning McQueen cake pan from Wilton's. Cute!

Chicago Police Officer Savagely Beats Barmaid

Anti-Hillary YouTube Video Maker Revealed

You've all seen this video by now. Yesterday it was revealed that the person behind the ad was tangentially associated with the Obama campaign after all.

From ABC News:

The presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was rocked by revelations Wednesday night that one of its contracted employees was the creator of a scathing YouTube video against his opponent Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., despite Obama's insistance that he had nothing to do with it.

Phil de Vellis, until Wednesday an employee of the company that handles Obama's Web site, boasted in a posting on the Huffington Post that he made the ad, though he claimed neither the Obama campaign nor his former employer, Blue State Digital — which does software development and hosting for Obama's campaign — was aware that he had.

"The specific point of the ad was that Obama represents a new kind of politics, and that Senator Clinton's 'conversation' is disingenuous," de Vellis wrote of the critical ad that uses an Apple computer TV ad to make Clinton appear like Big Brother. "And the underlying point was that the old political machine no longer holds all the power."

"This ad was not the first citizen ad, and it will not be the last," de Vellis wrote ominously. "The game has changed."

The admission threatened to besmirch Obama's pledge to run a clean campaign that doesn't attack his opponents, not to mention statements Obama made earlier this week about the ad.

It's great to have intelligent people trying to pitch in, isn't it? BTW, I'm not feeling Obama at all. More about that some other time.

Read more...

Beatboxing Dog

Would you buy a grill from this man?

No lie, Manny Ramirez is selling his used grill on eBay.

It doesn't look like he's doing it for charity, so...? LOL!

Template Update

I'm too tired to think of anything to blog about tonight, so I updated my blog template and I'm writing about that.

Okay, that was cheesy, but a post is a post.

Microsoft Bribes Companies to Use Search

From John Battelle's Search Blog:

...Microsoft is offering its large enterprise customers free service and product credits if those customers push Live search inside their enterprises. Called "Microsoft Service Credits for Web Search," a Powerpoint overview of the program sent to me states:

"Employees search the web daily with tools from Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo. OEMs and web sites are already earning credits based on searches that their users bring. Now, your organization can earn credits for Microsoft web searches and redeem them for Microsoft or preferred partner deployment and training services. More searches earns more credits towards the services you value."

The value is non-trivial - the presentation estimates companies can get from $2 to $10 per computer annually, plus a $25K "enrollment credit". For sites that have tens of thousands of computers, that can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in free stuff from Microsoft. Most large enterprises spend millions on Microsoft services and software each year. It's not hard to imagine a CFO getting slightly moist over savings like these.

So sleazy! In other words, Microsoft can't create a better search product, so they're paying folks to use their inferior shit.

Read more...

Foreign Films

I swiped this idea, with some modifications, from jali's house. Below are some foreign films worth seeing. They aren't ranked in order of preference, or any particular order.

Rabbit-Proof Fence: An Australian film about some half-aborigine children who escape from an orphanage and go on an impossibly long trek to reunite with their family. Very sad.

Lagaan: An Indian film about a group of villagers who respond to a British wager and form a rag-tag cricket team. If they win the match, their villages will avoid the crushing British taxes for three years. If they lose, they'll have to pay three times as much. The film runs about four hours, so be prepared.

Dirty Pretty Things: Murder complicates the lives of illegal immigrants struggling to survive in London. Very sympathetic characters.

The "Up" Series: Starting in 1964 with Seven Up, British director Michael Apted began what has to be the longest-running reality series. A group of seven-year-old children were filmed and interviewed and every seven years a new film is released showing how they're doing. In the most recent movie, the "kids" are now 49-years-old.

Most of them turned out about the way you'd expect -- the wealthy kids with the benefits of good schooling ended up with good careers. The biracial kid whose mom put him in a boys home for a year when he was seven (because it was embarrassing back then for a white girl to have a black kid) ended up working factory jobs and running a forklift. There were some surprises, such as how badly all of the girls ended up emotionally regardless of economic background. And one guy from a solid middle-class background dropped out of university and began a long downward spiral into homelessness before being rescued by another subject who was the son of a missionary.

Once Were Warriors: A drunken, out of work, violent father. Two sons in gangs. A battered wife and her young daughter try to hold the family together. Sounds like any of a number of inner-city American movies, but this one takes place in New Zealand. Stars Temuera Morrison, long before his role as Jango Fett in Star Wars: Episode II.

Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love: Nope, not a porn movie. Actually, pretty damn depressing. A wealthy woman and her servant, whom she treats like shit, grow up together, grow apart, and have really bad luck with men. Stars Naveen Andrews (Sayid from Lost) as a mean asshole.

"Mail" The Force Be With You

The U.S. Postal Services is helping celebrate the 30th anniversary of Star Wars by unveiling R2D2 mailboxes.

They're so darn cute! People are gonna deface them or steal them. You know this.

Read more...

Free Coffee

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Drive: The Next Big Thing

Yo, I may regret saying this, but I'm getting a vibe about this upcoming new show called Drive that's going to drop on Fox on April 15-16. I think this could be the next Prison Break.

Here's the teaser from the official site:

The next time you’re cut off by crazed drivers on your way to work, give them a little slack. They could be racing for their lives.

DRIVE is an action-fueled drama following a diverse group of Americans competing for their lives (or the lives of their loved ones) in an illegal, underground cross-country road race. Some of them have been coerced into joining “The Race”; others have sought out The Race themselves, hearing rumors of the $32-million prize. Each has a reason to compete. And each must win.

This could be the shit. Or it could be Cannonball Run. Or that cartoon with Muttley in it.

Learn more...

The Return of Sammy?

Texas Rangers' Sammy Sosa follows through on a single to center in the third inning off a pitch from Chicago White Sox' Gavin Floyd during a spring training baseball game in Surprise, Ariz., Tuesday, March 13, 2007.

Sosa says he feels like a rookie again after a season away from the diamond. Sosa had two hits and two runs on three at-bats with an RBI in the 12-8 loss to the White Sox. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)