No News Like New News

The "Fantastic Four" movie has been cast, and the big argument is over Johnny Storm's color.  How can a white Susan Storm have a black brother?  To find the answer you can ask Angelina Jolie's kids.  As long as Sue doesn't need a kidney transplant, there should be no problem.   There are also rumor's that Doctor Doom will be a Victoria instead of a Victor.  AND.. the filming will be done in Louisiana, a fine substitute for New York City.  None of this matters.  The important thing is that the licensing for the Fantastic Four remains in the hands of Fox Studios and not revert back to Marvel Comics. So anyone hoping to find an "Avengers/Fantastic Four Team-Up" movie in the future can begin their disappointment now.  Enough about that.  Back to other news...

Obama meeting the Dalai Lama is getting China upset.  Hope they don't get so mad as to call in their loans.  I doubt if we have the bucks to pay them back.  I'd hate to see America foreclosed.  I don't have anyplace to sleep in Canada and Mexico is too far away.

Steve Jobs will be commemorated on a postage stamp.  It's too bad that he was one of the people responsible for making snail mail obsolete.  Putting Jobs face on your letters, is like the American Lung Association endorsing Camel Filters.

Hope you don't have any Detroit Municipal Bonds.  Their value will be reduced up to 80%.  Also former Detroit employees collecting retirement benefits can look forward to a big reduction.  Detroit has an eighteen

billion dollar debt and this is the plan to get people to invest in the city again.  Well, you can't say Detroit doesn't thrive to be number one.  In the 1950's Detroit was the wealthiest major city in America.  In the 2010's it is the poorest.   Way to show those extremes!

The Winter Olympics in Sochi surprised me when the gold for curling went to Canada.  I had thought the Zimbabwe sliders and sweepers would take it until I found out Zimbabwe only had one Olympic participant.  Come on, Zimbabwe, you can do better!

(Okay, let's see if I covered everything...  Entertainment?  Yep!  Politics?  You betcha!  National and Local News?  Got both!  Sports?  Yessirree!  Weather?   Oops....)

Today we will have some weather, whether you want it or not.  Most of the weather will be outside.

So that's it.  Goodbye, until the next time.

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More Oscar Stuff

My Academy Award homework is complete.  I have seen the last two movies, "Nebraska" and "Philomena," and my predictions have not altered, they remain the same.  (click here for that posting: My Oscar Prophecy  ) I shall now review the two additional films for you.

"Philomena" is a true story about the search of an elderly woman, Philomena played by Judi Dench, for the child she gave up for adoption 50 years earlier.  Her daughter gets hold of a former BBC newsman, Martin Sixsmith portrayed by Steve Coogan, and convinces him that her mother's story is a book worth writing.  Martin and Philomena make a sweet and sour investigative team.  They start by setting focus on the convent that is still in operation.  This particular Catholic convent takes in expectant girls, helps deliver and then find parents for the babies, and then have the girls work off the accrued debt.  It takes five years of seven day, twelve hour, work weeks to clear the debt.  While the babies still reside in the convent (before adoption) the mothers are allowed to spend one hour a day with them.  Adoption could take place anywhere from a few weeks after birth to years later.  Philomena's boy was almost 5 when the convent found parents.  The qualifications for adopting a child is to be able to pay two thousand pounds.  For this reason, many of the adopters came from America.  The actress Jane Russell was one of these.  As the movie progresses, varied discoveries come to light.  Not only do we find out about the fate of Philomena's child, and secrets of the Catholic convent, but also Philomena and Martin peel back the layers of each other revealing their inner selves, much to their own surprise as to ours.  It is very good movie but I don't believe it will be taking home any statuettes, for Best Movie or Best Actress.  I thought Steve Coogan had the standout performance, though he was not nominated.  He is exceptional playing a serious role.   Before this I can only think of him in comedies.

"Nebraska" is what I consider a dramady, but is classified as an adventure drama.  Bruce Dern plays Woody Grant, a retiree who receives in the mail a chance to win one million dollars from Publishers Clearinghouse.  He neglects to understand the "chance to win" portion and believes he is the winner of one million dollars.  Not wanting to trust the mail with delivering his winnings, Woody wants to pick up the prize in person.  This is a 850 mile journey from his home in Billings, Montana, to Lincoln, Nebraska, the office of Publishers Clearinghouse.  He keeps starting this trip on foot several times only to be picked up by one of his two sons, or the State Troopers and returned to his home.  David, Woody's youngest, played by Will Forte, finally agrees to take time off from his job in an electronics store and drive his father to Nebraska.  He knows Woody did not really win, but he figures he can use the time on their trip to get to know his father better.  Along the way, the two stop at Woody's brother's house in Plainview, Nebraska.  The majority of this movie happens in Plainview.  This is where Woody grew up and most of the residents know him.  The people of Plainview find out about Woody's winnings and no matter how hard David tries to convince them that it is not true, the more they are convinced it is.   Soon everybody is looking to Woody for a handout.  The comedic situations of "Nebraska" are equal to the drama slash adventure.  I would recommend seeing this flick.  I don't think it will win the Best Picture Oscar, and Bruce Dern, in my opinion, is second only to Matthew McConaughey for the Best Actor prize.  That is a shame.  In any other year, Dern would be a shoe-in.  And I doubt many Oscar worthy scripts will be coming Bruce Dern's way in the near future.  Although, we may be shocked and see Bruce take home the gold trophy by being the "sentimental" favorite.  I don't like seeing Oscars awarded this way, but it does happen.  (i.e.: Martin Landau, Christopher Plummer and Henry Fonda)

After watching "Nebraska" and "Philomena" I stay firm in my previous predictions.  No changes other than Bruce Dern taking a strong number two spot for Best Actor.

It's Bad Luck To Be Superstitious

I am eighteen hours away from completing a 60 year journey through the universe.  I have spun on this orb 21,913 (soon to be 21,914) times and I still maintain my balance.  I have traveled 35,100,000,000 miles around our Sun.  It is no wonder I am short winded.  Also, keeping pace with the Sun, I fly through the galaxy at 140 miles per second, which means tomorrow at 5:55 am I will have flown 9,304,018,214,400,000,000,000 miles. (...and boy are my arms tired... {rim shot})

I came onto this planet on Thursday the twelfth, making Friday the thirteenth my first full day of existence.  Good thing I am not superstitious (knock on wood).   I recall being born and how badly I wanted a cigarette.  I was quite the smoker in my youth.  I averaged a pack and half per day.  My brand was Old Gold and I saved the coupons.  When I had accumulated enough for a chest x-ray, I decided to keep collecting until I could get an iron lung.  Unfortunately, they quit making iron lungs before I had enough coupons, so I had no choice but to extinguish my smoking habit.

In my beginning, I had very little control of my limbs, which made it impossible to turn on a radio or TV.  I couldn't even hold a book for reading.  So those first few months were boring as hell.  I tried to sleep as much I could.   Also, I was toothless.  You think my folks would have sprung for a set of dentures, but no.  They preferred to use their money for housing and utilities... and food.  Which was very mean of them, taunting me with their meat and potatoes knowing full well it would be quite some time before I could enjoy a burger and fries.

One thing I had, that today's babies do not, is a diaper pail.  Today, a soiled diaper gets thrown away.  Diapers were not always a paper product.  They used to be made of cotton cloth and reusable.  Before I was potty trained, my soiled diapers were deposited into a diaper pail kept next to my crib.  It is said only other people's feces reek of odor, but that is untrue.  Try living in a room with a few days worth of your own excrement.  It can be very unpleasant.  Moms was not always in a rush to wash the diapies.

While in the process of learning English, my first messages were not always understood.  I would be yelling for Dad to turn off the bowling program and put on "The Pinky Lee Show."  This usually resulted with me getting a pacifier crammed into my mouth.  The folks had to dip into their savings to procure a pacifier because they got tired of me pulling paint chips off the wall to suck on.  Not that they were worried about the damage lead paint could cause, but because I was ruining the decor of the room.

This is it for now.  At a later time I may continue writing about my starting out as this particular life-force, the thrills and spills of it all, or I may not.  But I will leave you by revealing that I had no brothers or sisters and the family motto was "Go to your room, Johnny."

And In This Corner, Mia

A divide has happened.  Females 40 and younger vs. Males of all ages.  In the 1950's is was Elvis or Pat Boone.  In the 1960's it was the Beatles vs. Rolling Stones.  In the 1970's it was Coke or Pepsi.  In the 1980's it was Mac or DOS.  1990's had O.J., a framed innocent or a murderer.  The 2000's George W or anybody else.  Which brings us to today.  Today we have Mia vs. Woody.  If you are a female 40 years or younger, chances are you on the side of Mia and Dylan.  Older men are on the side of Woody and Dylan.

What?  How can both sides be for Dylan?  Well, if her accusations are true, then good for her for speaking out.  If her accusations are false memories implanted by Mia Farrow and Dylan believes them to be true, then good for her for speaking out.  Child molestation should never be kept secret.

I've been digging up old articles from the 1990's when this crime supposedly was committed.  From all that I have read, I am apt to think that Mia subjected her child to brain washing.  We will never know 100% either way.  But there is one article that I want to bring up. Did you know that because of Woody and Mia's joint adoptions, it has made it possible for unmarried people (both straight and gay) to adopt children  So they did do something good together.  Who would've thunk?

The following is a quote from the attorney who put through the adoption.  It comes after Woody and Mia called it quits.

Because the court did not write and publish a decision, the magnitude of the case was not immediately appreciated.  At the time, attorney Weltz had ambitions no greater than to legalize the care of two children in a solid, if unconventional, family. "It was the happiest day I ever had in court," he says. "A wonderful event. The judge gave the kids lollipops." But ask Weltz how he feels now, after the family has been riven by charges of betrayal and abuse, and he sounds like a morose King Solomon -- one who cunningly offered to split a child in two only to hear both putative parents say that was fine with them. He muses, "I knew not what we had done."


As far as Mia vs Woody, Woody may try to leave it in the past but it looks to me like Mia will keep jumping on that crusted up dog crap to release the pungent odor anew.