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**This was the lead to a post written on 23 Dec 2009 which, due to our laziness, never made it to print.
Craig Lynch, 28, of England, escaped from Hollesley Bay prison back in September, but dude has continued to update his Facebook status almost daily, regaling his growing public with tales of his exploits, be they the dinner he had that night or the girl he will tonight. Guy has balls, we'll give him that. And before you ask -- hellz YEAH, we friended him!
Update: Lynch was re-arrested on 13 Jan. A fund has been established for the care of his Farmville animals, however. Please send checks c/o Gary Bates, to 5555 E. mockingbird Ln., Apt 1207; Dallas, Tx 75206, and know that you're keeping his animals alive.
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Here's some food for thought.
People tend to focus on the dangers and downside of the technology. SPAM, soccer moms texting in traffic, incessant penile enlargement ads; there's a lot of crap out there. Every once in a while though, something comes along that makes us say, "now that's what the (fill in the name of the technology) was invented for".
One of them happened about a year or so ago, when The Times of London made virtually their entire archives available online -- for free. Want to read about the birth announcement of Queen Elizabeth -- the first? Have at it. Care to peruse contemporary news coverage of the US Presidential election of 1800? Knock yourself out. A heretofore unimaginable cache of information became available at the click of a mouse. To quote Friend of the Blog Waldo, "now that's the kind of thing the internet was invented for."
Another example is something that is going on right now. Anyone who has a teenager or who has to spend any time at all in public knows how annoying people on cell phones can be. Seriously, SkatterKid has callouses on her thumbs from texting and if we see one more jackass on the front row of an NBA game stand up, turn around and wave to the camera, we're gonna buy some cheap seats and a high-powered assault rife and go Chuck Whitman on that fucker. But we digress.
As everyone knows, a horrific earthquake devastated Haiti last week. And that is truly the word for it. The loss of life is staggering. And the lives of those remaining in what was already a rough place to live, just got, if one can believe it, even more difficult. Orphans, hunger, despair. And, as always, the Red Cross is there to help. And they have teamed up with every cell phone carrier in an unprecedented example of the synergy modern technology allows for. By simply texting "Haiti" to 90999, $10.00 is donated to relief efforts. No phone call, no check, no stamp -- nothing. Bam! Ten dollars gets added to your phone bill and immediately goes to help people. In just the eleven days since the earthquake, over $305Million dollars has been raised.
Now that is what cell phones were invented for.
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Fare thee well, Teddy , we'll see you on the Other Side. Save us a song and some wheels.
An interesting note here, that shows the other side of how society and technology have changed, this time, in our opinion, for the worse:
When Teddy Pendergrass had the car accident in March of 1982 that landed him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, he was with a companion. The companion was a male-to-female transsexual. Can you imagine that not being the lead of the story, had the accident happened 28 days ago, instead of 28 years?
And they call us evolved.
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What can we say about Gilbert Arenas? Dude brings three guns into the locker room of the Verizon Center and says he did so because his wife (who isn't really his wife, but just some babymama he shacks up with) and he just had a kid and he wanted to have a gun-free home. Sounds ok, even responsible. Couple of problems here though. First, there are plenty of pawn shops, safe deposit boxes and sewers in the DC area in which to deposit an unwanted firearm; your workplace should never be on that list. Second, the team you work for is called the Wizards, only because the owner -- who just died -- changed it from Bullets because he didn't want the association to violence. Standing amidst your fellow players, shooting finger pistols at them in pregame warmups two days after the story broke was probably not the brightest idea you've ever had, despite your dumbass teammates all laughing. Third, this is your third kid! What, the other two seemed ok, but Baby 3 looks like he likes to sling lead when his diaper gets dirty?
Seriously, we never knew Agent Zero was an intellectual reference. We always thought it was just because that was your uniform number.
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Quote of the Week:
“Work hard and be kind, and amazing things will happen."
--Conan O'Brien, 2010
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Internet Video of the Week:
Here.
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Ridiculous Stat of the Week:
Shareholders of the companies Tiger Woods endorses are going to lose and estimated $25-40 Billion because he likes to bang chicks to whom he is not married. So, we went from buying houses we can't afford, to putting our money on a rich, young, famous, attractive man not screwing everything in sight.
Putting money in the mattress is looking better every day. (Unless the mattress is owned by a white chick that will ever be within 500 feet of Tiger Woods.)
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Idiot of the Week:
The Philadelphia Eagles, for unanimously voting to name Michael "Cujo" Vick this year's receipient of the Ed Block Courage Award. According to the NFL, the Ed Block Award honors players who, "exemplify commitment to the principles of sportsmanship and courage", and all 32 teams select a winner. Aparently, going to prison for murdering defenseless animals exhibits sportsmanship, then falling into a million-dollar job where you work five minutes a week takes great courage.
And in the interest of fairness, we must report that the Dallas Cowboys, on the other hand, named assistant coach Joe DeCamillas as their Ed Block Award winner. DeCamillas broke five vertabrae in his neck when the team's practice facility collapsed last spring then returned to his job five days later, not missing another day of work until his appendix burst and he was rushed to the hospital. He missed a game for that but was back on the field by the next week.
Which guy do you think deserves an award?
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Eddie Money
Can't Hold Back
1986
Take Me Home Tonight - (3:32)*
One Love - (4:13)
I Wanna Go Back - (3:59)*
Endless Nights - (3:24)*
One More Chance - (4:49)
We Should Be Sleeping - (3:59)*
Bring on the Rain - (4:57)
I Can't Hold Back - (3:52)
Stranger in a Strange Land - (3:36)
Calm Before the Storm - (4:32)
* - singles
Eddie Mahoney embodies the American Dream. He grew up on Long Island, became an NYC cop, like his dad, and his uncles and his granddads and settled into a life. He played a little sax, dabbled on the keyboards but could play a mean harmonica. So he sat in on the occasional gig and was the proverbial cop with a dream of Something More. But then he quit his job, changed his name, moved to California and BAM! Dude became a star. Only in America.
Eddie Money is neither a virtuoso musician nor a particularly gifted singer. He writes no music and very few lyrics. He was blessed with a solid backing band (including host-to-be of a certain program we will never mention, Randy Jackson), a manager who scored him some really good songs and producers who knew what they were doing. In many ways, it should have been surprising had he not had three platinum albums in the 1980's, the last of which was Can't Hold Back.
Lots of synth, lots of echo, lots of sax. This is a pretty indicative album of the mid 80's. Ronnie Spector's haunting vocals on Take Me Home Tonight are amongst the most memorable of any in the decade, by anyone and Endless Nights is one of our favorite songs from our teenage years. I Wanna Go Back was a poor-man's Glory Days, and those three songs all landed in the Top 20 on the Billboard Chart, with the lead cut peaking at #4, the highest Money would ever get.
There was another single, We Should Be Sleeping, but it, along with the rest of the set, was pretty run of the mill stuff. Can't Hold Back is a nice trip back in time, but you're not going to find any forgotten pearls here.
Eddie Money is what he is.
The American Dream.
Music: 2 (of 5)
Lyrics: 2 (of 5)
Authorship: 1 (of 4)
Production: 3 (of 3)
Packaging: 2 (of 2)
First Blush: 2 (of 2)
Aging: 1 (of 3)
Videos: 1 (of 1)
Total: 14
Stars: 2.8 (of 5)
~~~
Parting shots: This just in from the Imagine That department -- Steven Tyler has entered rehab...Good on Obama for urging the Donkeys not to push a healthcare bill through before the newly-minted Elephant from Massachussetts is seated (and a fitting end to the Kennedy dynasty it is)...We're going with Saints/Colts in the Conference Championship games...Pat Robertson -- you are too stupid for words...If you're interested, Here is the original New York Times article on Teddy Pendergrass' accident. A friend of a friend of my father's was the responding officer so there were some in Philadelphia who always knew about the tranny, but it never made print until 1994, here. A different world, indeed...This week's poll, at the bottom of the page is for your Super Bowl picks.
And with that, we bid you adieu.
Until next time,
Keep the Faith
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