Friday, October 31, 2003

You may think your local representative is a blood-sucking fiend, but folks in the Berlin suburbs really have it bad. Earlier this week, Count Dracula won a council seat.

Posted @ 7:25 AM

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Monday, October 27, 2003

Just about four hours now until I see Eddie Izzard at the Warner Theatre in DC. And unlike Bob Uecker, I actually will be in the front row!

I'd love to write about my excitement over this in glowing, grandiloquent terms, but I can't. My eagerness is too raw for that. I'm psyched, I'm pumped, I'm jazzed, I'm stoked.

And were I not already so primed for tonight's performance, the piece on Eddie in today's WaPo would have gotten me there.

I'll try to have a report on the show up here sometime before Thursday, but most of you know how I am about such things. Sunday at the latest, I swear.

Posted @ 2:04 PM

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Wednesday, October 22, 2003

Time apparently wants to prove just how untimely it truly is. In their October 27th issue they're running a short piece about TV shows they feel are in danger of jumping the shark. The shows they identify as nearing the end of their ropes? Friends, ER, NYPD Blue, and Everybody Love Raymond.

While Raymond's continuing creative viability may be subject to debate, it's safe to say the other three programs jumped a long time ago. Both critics and fans alike have been decrying the sorry state of these shows for years. In fact, the author of the article even admits NYPD Blue's best days are long behind it (which begs the question: why say a show is on the bubble if you've already written it off?).

It's bad enough that Time presents the idea of shark-jumping as a factory-fresh concept months after people began questioning whether "jump the shark" had itself jumped the shark. To then compound this behind-the-curviness by applying the term to shows that are wheezing past the decade mark makes them sound like David Ogden Stiers trying to relate to John Cusack in Better Off Dead. And that really brings me over, man.

Posted @ 1:03 PM

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Tuesday, October 21, 2003

Halloween is fast approaching, and I've got nothing to wear. Which is not a huge problem, as I've also got nowhere to go.

Not being a child anymore and not having a child of my own, I'm left in Halloween limbo. I love All Hallow's Eve, but there's really no good way for me to celebrate it. I've gone out to the bars or in to work in costume a few of times since college, but those just don't have the same feel as the whole trick-or-treating thing.

Some years, being the candy-giver rather than the candy-receiver has filled the bill. Sadly, in recent times I've been in neighborhoods that don't get a lot of foot traffic, and my current digs are simply too far off the beaten path to get any trick-or-treaters at all.

With luck, some day I'll have a kid and be able to glom on to his or her dressing-up and candy-begging. Until that day comes, I have to live vicariously through those who've already got munchkins. John Scalzi gets the ball rolling early for me with this entry on his daughter and her devilishly delightful Halloween costume.

Posted @ 7:55 AM

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Friday, October 17, 2003

Now that baseball is completely done for the year as far as I'm concerned, let's move on...

I mentioned a while back that there would be a Green Lantern episode of the new Duck Dodgers series on Cartoon Network. That ep premieres tomorrow, and this preview image of Daffy as Green Loontern has me considering an action I haven't taken since I was a tween: getting up early on a Saturday morning to watch cartoons.

Maybe I should pick up some Apple Jacks on the way home so the experience can be a complete flashback to the early 80s for me. It's that or order a pizza tonight which I can eat cold in the morning. Either would work nicely.

Posted @ 12:41 PM

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Wednesday, October 15, 2003

This'll likely be my next-to-last Cubs post for a few days, regardless of which way tonight's game goes.

I've got Steve Goodman's Affordable Art ready to go in the CD player. The late, great musician and Cubs fan has two baseball songs on this disc, and I'll play one of them at the end of the game tonight.

If it's a win, the tune will be Goodman's rendition of "Take Me Out To The Ballgame."

If it's a loss, it'll be "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request."

He's been gone almost twenty years, but I know Steve will be sitting in the bleachers at Wrigley tonight, watching and pulling for his favorite team, bringing them all the luck he can.

We'll see if it'll be enough.

Posted @ 7:11 PM

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So the Cubs lost last night. Tonight they have one more chance to make it to the World Series.

If the 2003 Chicago Cubs are a championship caliber team, they will rise above last night's adversity and win Game 7. It's as simple as that.

I'll be watching tonight, full of hope and support for this team I know in my heart to be great.

Posted @ 8:17 AM

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Tuesday, October 14, 2003

Is tonight the night? Will the Cubs clinch the National League pennant for the first time since the Truman administration? Could this really, finally be "next year?" Do you have any idea how hard it is to type with all your fingers crossed?

Posted @ 4:05 PM

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Saturday, October 11, 2003

"I lack sufficient capabilities to express my disdain." - State Department spokesman Richard Boucher responding to Pat Robertson, who commented last week that State's headquarters in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington should be nuked.

Posted @ 5:09 PM

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Thursday, October 09, 2003

Here's a little "What If?" game I've played with myself for as long as I can remember, usually when I've just caught a less-than-flattering glimpse of myself in a mirror.

You are offered basic superpowers: flight, super-strength, some degree of invulnerability, that kind of thing.

The catch? For the rest of your life, you will look exactly as you do right at this moment: clothes, haircut, make-up (if you wear it), everything. The only difference will be that you'll continue to age and show it.

Do you accept? Discuss.

Posted @ 4:01 PM

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Wednesday, October 08, 2003

John Scalzi provides the outro to the California recall election, nicely complementing Adam Felber's intro.

Posted @ 1:39 PM

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So much for my ability to affect election outcomes.

I'm of a mind to stop talking about politics altogether.

Yeah, like that's gonna happen.

Posted @ 7:51 AM

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Tuesday, October 07, 2003

Adam Felber's plea to the voters of California wins my vote for best commentary on today's recall election, and on the state of American democracy in general. Whether you're casting a ballot in the Golden State or not, it bears reading.

Posted @ 11:55 AM

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Monday, October 06, 2003

I've been horribly remiss. Two weeks have passed since the latest installment of Kevin Guilfoile's Madalyn Murray O’Hair In Hell series popped up over at The Morning News, and I'm just now posting a link to it. As the self-appointed, unofficial cheerleader for these stories, I have completely fallen down on the job.

Of course, if there hadn't been five months between the last entry and this one, maybe I wouldn't have been so delinquent. I'm just sayin'.

Posted @ 1:40 PM

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Sunday, October 05, 2003

Lament

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Oh, my lump in the bed
How I've missed you

Roses are redder
Bluer am I
Seeing you kissed by
That charming French guy

The dogs and the cat
They missed you too
Barney's still mad you dropped him
He ate your shoe

The distance, my dear
Has been such a barrier
Next time you want an adventure
Just land on a carrier

- George W. Bush

This is one of those cases where the words truly speak for themselves. Any additional comment is moot.

He blamed Laura for dropping the dog?

Posted @ 11:24 AM

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Friday, October 03, 2003

Eddie Izzard as Dr. Who? That's the claim made by Tom Baker, the actor who played the Time Lord for seven years in the mid-seventies and early eighties, on British Radio this week.

The venerable series, which began in 1963, is returning to the BBC in 2005 after an absence of more than a decade. It'll probably take a little while for the show to work its way across The Pond, although I'm hopeful that BBC America will speed the process significantly.

Either way, I'm intrigued by the relaunch, and if this casting news turns out to be true, I'm gonna need:

1. a friend in Great Britain willing to tape the show and send it to me


2. a PAL/NTSC converter

Now, this is a British tabloid quoting an actor with a mischievous streak as wide as the Thames, so several grains of salt must be taken with this bit of news. Nonetheless, the pairing of actor and part would be glorious, so I hope it's more than just a passing rumor.

I'll have to stand at the stage door and personally ask Eddie about this after I see him in concert three weeks from now.

(The Sun link was shamelessly swiped from Gina - thanks, kid!)

Posted @ 12:38 AM

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Wednesday, October 01, 2003

I seem to have fallen into another of those writing lulls, when updates are few and far between, and even then are brief and link-dependent. This is not by design, I assure you, but the doldrums have definitely settled on the House of Cheer.

There are reasons for this, but they are multitudinous and boring, so I'll save you all the trouble and refrain from airing them.

Almost invariably after I post one of these explanations/apologies, I go on a tear and starting posting right and left (well, mostly Left, I guess). I'm hoping that pattern holds true.

In the meantime, my buddy Rick is on such a tear right now, having posted two great pieces during the 1 o'clock hour yesterday. I urge you to check out both Rights vs. Powers and Victims. As the kids say, you'll be glad you did.

Posted @ 10:05 AM

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