He used cocaine in the days prior to his death, and his body was full of stimulants. Cocaine? Stimulants? Things that make one hyperactive? Who could have dreamed?

"I was told that Piven was easy to work with and seemed happy especially after he got Kelly Kelly's phone number."

Or, more precisely, both Lord Ga and Lady Ga.

I'm still not sure what she means about this "sex tape is not real" but "I was less than 18" stuff. As best I can piece it together, she means: (1) the stills you saw do not come from a sex tape, but are just some stand-alone WYSIWYG material; (2) while the source is not a sex tape, the stills are really Leighton, but she was not 18 years old (she thinks).

Whether any of that is true, I don't know, but that's my best guess about what she's trying to say.

Bo's physical gifts were super-human. If he had dedicated his life entirely to baseball, he might well have become the greatest player in history. The guy had no idea how to play baseball, but he was still a top player. Even before his hip replacement surgery, he never learned how to lead the swing with his hips, so he rarely pulled the ball. If he were a normal human being, that would have prevented him from being a power hitter. But Bo Jackson was not a normal human being. "Mechanics? He don't need no stinkin' mechanics." In 1989 the right-handed Jackson hit 32 homers - three went to left, three went to left center, and the other 26 either went the opposite way or to straightaway center. With his arms alone, he just plain muscled everything he hit. The raw power in his body was just freakin' unbelievable. And his speed was just as impressive. In NFL tryouts, he ran the 40 in 4.12, which is still the fastest NFL time on record, if I recall correctly. Bo is probably the only baseball player in history whose raw physical gifts were more impressive than Mantle's. In addition to the speed and power, he also had a mighty throwing arm, which Mantle did not.

I wonder if the price is negotiable?

I might go if she pays me enough. Better yet, I can get the money from her, and scalp the tickets for free, thus pocketing the money without having to hear her!

Kidding aside, the last time the music legend performed at the Village Vanguard was in 1961, when she opened for Miles Davis. The audience for this free concert will be determined by a random drawing and various contests, all of which you can sign up for at her site, linked above.

Acquiring Carl Pavano - could a plan be any more foolproof?

Seriously, fast-forwarding over the jokes about his first trip to the DL, Pavano is 5-1 with a .85 WHIP against the White Sox and Tigers, so that just may be a very smart acquisition.

At least it will seem so for the three or four days before he has a season-ending injury.

Man - talk about strict controls!

OK, I admit it sounds kinda lax, but remember, this is New Jersey, where you get a free handgun with every Slurpee and the kindergarten kids wear shoulder holsters.

Harry Potter? This may not be the best use of male celebrity privilege. Reminds me of the time I got caught sneaking into "Beaches" after I bought a ticket for the re-release of "The Dirty Dozen."

"We're gonna need a bigger boat chair."

This is not a repeat from yesterday, or last week, or last year, or the 1990s.

Who would have thought that a couple of years ago?

"The two female journalists held captive in North Korea are saying they were shocked to walk into a room and see Bill Clinton there. That's what they said. Then they said they were even more shocked to see him wearing nothing but a towel." --Conan O'Brien

"President Clinton flew all the way to North Korea, under the cover of night, to rescue two beautiful women from the clutches of an evil dictator this morning. And what's amazing is that's the exact same alibi he used on Hillary last week." --Conan O'Brien

"Meanwhile, also this morning, Former President Bush rescued two purple stars from his Lucky Charms." --Jimmy Kimmel

"Here is the most Clinton-esque detail of the entire operation [on screen: anchors reporting that the jet was owned by Shangri-La Entertainment]. What? Mr. President, we have to send you to North Korea, but we don't have a plane for you. 'Let me call my friends at Shangri-La Entertainment. They owe me one. They know why.'" --Jon Stewart

The first line is one of the greats, up there with "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times."

"If Dad hadn’t shot Walt Disney in the leg, it would have been our best vacation ever!"

I thought about being cynical and writing a headline like, "John Hughes's body finally found; he had been dead since 1991," or "John Hughes joins his career," but I finally decided that such an approach was too mean-spirited, and not very funny. It's also misleading, because Hughes never did become a has-been. He walked away while he was on top. Hughes could have hung around in Hollywood, cranking out more of the same, but he was ready to leave, and he did. That is, ultimately, pretty fucking admirable.

Most other web sites will note that he helped give a generation its self-definition with such films as Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller, Sixteen Candles, and Pretty in Pink.

But more important than that, he gave us "The Donger," Wally World and Cousin Eddie! Hughes wrote the screenplay for the first Chevy Chase "Vacation" movie from his own short story, "Vacation '58"

Dude. Bloggers are not supposed to know how to dress. Hilton would probably be the best-dressed among bloggers. He's the only one with no pizza stains on his shirt.

"If you're a guy and you had a computer in the 90’s, you almost definitely had this Karen Mulder wallpaper at least once. I had it twice. From 1994 to 97, then from a week later in 97 to 98. And her body still looked pretty awesome this week in St Tropez, on a yacht with some Russian mob-lookin' dudes and some other topless chicks."

Er - no. Definitely not THE most. While these are all historically inaccurate, they seem to be Ph.D. dissertations compared to The English Patient, Disney's Pocahontas, and They Died With Their Boots On.

Now if only Leonard Cohen would contribute a few tracks, because nothing expresses the merriment of a Christmas song-fest like two dour, joyless Jews with unmelodic voices! Many's the time the family and I would gather round the menorah and sing "Desolation Row."

Ok, we didn't have a menorah. It was a festivus pole.

"Holding up liquor store. LOL."

I'm going to go them one better and cut out the middle man. I'm going to pee directly in the rainforest. That way I cut back on the overhead, and pass the savings on to you.

Submitter wrote: "On the occasions that I find myself playing mentor to young men in the area of romance, my advice is always the same. Forget about the movies. Being nice to the girl of your dreams won't work and pining away in the friend-zone, has never once won over a girl in the real world. You have three seconds to win over a girl and that is when you first meet her, after that move on, you managed it or you didn't. Walk away with class. Again, avoid like the fucking plague, the friend-zone. Don't try to buy a woman's affection with presents, it doesn't work and only empties your pockets. Presents are only for established relationships.
Last and most important, watch Cary Grant movies."

Wrestling's legendary bad girl is still at it.

(The theme from National Lampoon's Vacation)

"(The tape) is not real. People think it's real because somebody says it is."

"By the way, [as for] me being 18 in those pictures, I don't believe I was."

So, if it was her, and she was less than 18 years old, exactly what was not real? Does anyone understand what she is trying to say?

"This video shows a crazy man launching himself off an epically-large water slide and landing perfectly in a kiddie pool very far away from it."

And may I say that Vermont just seems like the perfect location for that.

• GI Joe: 3500 theaters; 85% positive reviews. From the Transformers team. The positive percentage will undoubtedly fall. The film was not pre-screened for mainstream critics. On the other hand, a lot of the people who did see it said that it was surprisingly entertaining.
  
• Julie and Julia: 2300 theaters; 64% positive reviews. Meryl Streep as Julia Child. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say this is not a dick-flick.
  
• Perfect Getaway: 2000 theaters; 60% positive reviews. American honeymooners in a remote locale ... what could go wrong?
  

G.I. Joe is expected to run away and hide from the competition, taking in about as much as the next four films added together.

The designated counter-programming is the Julia Child flick, starring Meryl Streep. That is expected to finish second, with a solid $19 million.

The other new film is A Perfect Getaway, which is sort of a soft-core version of the official torture porn plot. (American tourists in secluded and/or lawless areas. This premise is to torture porn as a pizza delivery is to sex porn.) A Perfect Getaway is expected to finish a weak 7th.

"Hey, congratulations to former President Bill Clinton. He traveled to North Korea today, met with Kim Jong-Il and won the release of those two female journalists. It was great for Obama to use Clinton that way. I think I know how he got him to go over there. You know, he's probably like, 'Bill, I need you to go to North Korea for me.' 'I can't do it. I'm completely booked. I have numerous obligations.' 'I want you to visit a woman's prison.' 'What time's my flight?'" --Jimmy Fallon

"And then afterwards, Clinton told the hostages, 'I, too, know what it's like to be held captive by an evil tyrant who wears ladies' sunglasses. I feel your pain.'" --Conan O'Brien

"The rumor is Kim Jong-Il and Clinton made a deal. Kim Jong Il gave the women a special pardon and in return he got 20 pairs of Hillary's pantsuits." --Jimmy Kimmel

"And May God help any nation that tries to kidnap Megan Fox!" --Jimmy Kimmel

"It's President Obama's 48th birthday. The President has asked that in lieu of sending a gift, people just make a donation to his favorite charity, General Motors." --Conan O'Brien

"But Obama's birthday is a reminder of why healthcare is so important. As you probably know, due to a lack of healthcare coverage, Obama's mother was turned away from a number of hospitals and was ultimately forced to give birth in a manger." --Jimmy Kimmel

"Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is on vacation. And today -- I don't know if you saw this -- he was photographed on horseback without his shirt. The photograph won't appear in the newspaper, but it will appear on the cover of Danielle Steele's new novel 'Iron Fist, Velvet Heart.'" --Conan O'Brien

"The United States Postal Service says they might lose $7 billion this year. Apparently, the post office will lose the seven billion when it mails the money to itself." --Conan O'Brien

"It's a shame to see people out of work, but I have to admit I am looking forward to hearing postal workers complain how slow the lines are at the unemployment office." --Jimmy Kimmel

... and I know you do.

She's shielding her eyes and covering her hair in an apparent effort to conceal her identity. A master scheme worthy of Professor Moriarty. Nobody would ever have known it was LL if I were not telling you right now. Who would have suspected that a large-breasted thin woman wearing leggings with jewel-studded knee-high boots might be Lohan. For just a second there, I thought it might be the ghost of Audrey Hepburn.

Next up: ultra-hip Vegas show, where she says "ring-a-ding" and "koo-koo," and pals around with George Clooney, Timberlake, and ScarJo, with a special guest appearance from President Obama.

The research capacity of the internet can be astounding at times! Here is an interview with the Aussie whose real birth certificate was used as a template for the fake. His birth certificate was online on his family's genealogy website.

Blind taste test results for black coffee and capuccino

• Overall Best: Dunkin' Donuts
  
• 2nd: McDonald's
  
• Worst: Starbucks
  

The summary is a bit misleading since Starbucks did not finish last in either category, but it didn't win either category either. If you want a good cup of Joe, regular old black coffee, Dunkin' Donuts won going away in this taste test. If you want a good cappucino, Mickey Ds was the surprise winner. On the other hand, you should not get that advice reversed. McDs had the worst coffee, and Dunkin' had the worst cappucino. Starbucks was mediocre down the line.

You know that slogan "once is not enough"? Pretty sure once will do the trick in this case.

"It also bars offenders from operating emergency vehicles, such as an ambulance."

"Vanessa Hudgens leapt from 'High School Musical' and into my heart two years ago when naked pictures she took for boyfriend Zac Efron ended up online. I have no idea what the back story is to these brand new pics that leaked this morning, but luckily there’s not a single person on earth who cares for the time being, so that worked out nicely for me."

Keep lookin', scientists. Alicia Silverstone has to be nearby.

"Not all fans have reached the unfortunate conclusion, and point to the blog for proof. 'If Zach actually died, he would address it on the blog. He’d write something funny, and of course, poignant. It would feel like a voice-over from an episode of Scrubs.'”

The amazing thing is that the anemic Cardinals rarely get the bases loaded! He's only had nine at-bats with the sacks full all year, but has made the most of those opportunities, with five homers. (And two other hits, for a .778 batting average.)

The record for grand slams in a season is six, and that has been done twice. When Travis Hafner had six salamis in 2006, he did it in 14 at-bats. Don Mattingly had nineteen at-bats with the bases full when he hit his six grand slams in 1987. Those guys were both American Leaguers, so Pujols has already tied the all time NL record - with just nine at bats!

My problem is that I can't distinguish the Cheechakos from the Sourdoughs.

That's why I never eat at Mexican restaurants.

Amazingly, AMC sold a lot of Gremlins and Pacers back in the day.

I second the vote for Iguazu Falls. I've been around, and that's the most beautiful place I have seen, hands down. Nice to see two places in upstate New York make the list. It is beautiful there, and doesn't usually get mentioned on lists like this.

(Videos for most.)

"The man who wrote many of the speeches for President George W. Bush is now working on his memoirs. The book will be called 'Me Do Bad Job.'" --Conan O'Brien

"President Obama just announced he's considering transferring prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to Michigan. The idea is to scare the prisoners into revealing information about terror plots by showing them a bus ticket to Detroit." --Conan O'Brien

"Hey, at a concert in Washington, D.C., Paul McCartney dedicated the song 'Michelle' to Michelle Obama. And then, I thought this was sweet, he dedicated the song 'Taxman' to Barack." --Jimmy Fallon

"This weekend, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin took a submarine to the bottom of Lake Baikal, the world's deepest lake. He got to see some rare exotic fish and his past political opponents." --Jimmy Fallon

"Cash for Clunkers. Have you done this? Have you traded in your clunker? See, you can take your old gas-guzzling clunker to your GM dealer and trade it in for a new, gas-guzzling clunker. For the first time in years, people in Kentucky can see their front yard." --Bill Maher

"But they had a beer or two or three or maybe four. And then I guess things really got wild. About 2:30 this morning, Obama declared war on Iceland because he decided it wasn't icy enough." --Jimmy Kimmel

I'm not an expert on this topic, but I think Alyson Hannigan should probably be on the list as well.

"Toshiba has licensed its HD DVD to CBHD and it will be the unit world leader in HD optical technology in just 12 months."

Those robots sure can juggle those knives!

But seriously, what could go wrong?

(Hosted on Rapidshare for download to your computer.)

"Benson weighed 64lbs (29kg) - more than a large dog - and was voted Britain's Favourite Carp by the readers of Angler's Mail in 2005."

Jeff Goldblum is eating well in heaven tonight!

That should be applauded, at least by the CDC.

"Ruth Madoff has to document everything she buys that costs more than $100. Everything. The purchases must be deemed reasonable by a judge, otherwise she could be held liable and in contempt of court. Ruth Madoff is exactly like a high school kid whose dad found out she used the "emergency" credit card he got her to buy booze. One more mistake, young lady, and it's bye-bye Visa, hello McJob."

Reader mail:

"Last night in a bar a patron was explaining to all within earshot how prescient (or lucky) the original designers of baseball were in picking the dimensions of the infield. Larger, and most grounders would be outs, smaller, and most would be hits. Likewise, if the mound was closer, strikeouts would results, further, many more home runs.

However, I suspect modern players run faster, hit harder and through faster than they did 100, 50 and even 25 years ago, and that is without for the live ball era, so my guess is that players have adjusted to changing conditions. But unlike golf, where equipment and strength made golf course obsolete, baseball is a game of competing team, not player against field, so it all works out.

What say you?"

---

My response:

His argument is soft on the facts. The original designers did not get it right. While the infield dimensions have stayed consistent, everything else has been tinkered with to get the modern game: the pitching distance, the outfield dimensions, the size of foul territory, the height of the mound, the size of the strike zone, etc.

The original pitching distance was similar to softball. When the powers-that-were determined that there was too little offense in the early 1890s, the rules were changed to extend the distance to 60 feet in 1893, and the offense absolutely exploded overnight - something like 30% more runs in just one year (1893 versus 1892), and then another 15% the next year. In 1894 all three Phillies outfielders hit over .400 (and made the HOF) - for a team that finished a distant fourth! Their rivals, the Boston Beaneaters, scored a record 9.2 runs per game, led by Hugh Duffy, who batted .440. They finished third!

And so forth.

Pitchers gradually adjusted to the new pitching distance, some men learned to throw harder, more kids grew up throwing overhand, other pitchers developed curveballs, and there was exiguous offense again in the 19-oughts, so the masters of the game took various actions in 1911, and then again in 1920, to add offense again. And then they started to tinker with the ballparks. The old ballparks where the foul territory was enormous (so fielders could get to almost everything), and/or the fences were distant, were modified and eventually scrapped. In the early-to-mid 20s, one of the foul posts was 424 feet from home plate at Griffith Stadium in Washington! Goose Goslin had one year when he hit no homers at home, 17 on the road. The fences were gradually moved down to the 350 range. Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, built by the same firm as Griffith Stadium, required a homer of 365+ to left and 375+ to right. That right field was eventually shortened to something like 300, and the left field was shortened by 30 feet for a special porch in the late 40s or early 50s so that Ralph Kiner could inflate his home run totals.

I'm sure you are aware of the tinkering they did with the strike zone and the pitcher's mound in the 70s, when pitchers again took complete command of the game. Offensive production by 1968 had returned to the levels of the deadball era. In fact, it was LOWER than the deadball era. In 1906, when the Cubs set all those pitching records, teams averaged 3.5 runs per game. In 1968 it was 3.4. The game's high muckity-mucks had to provide a remedy to that, and they did, by tinkering with the mound and the strike zone. By 2000, fueled by the new rules and later by steroids, the RPG had climbed all the way to 5.0, and baseball had its third era of offensive explosion.

Frankly, if baseball had not taken some action to restrict steroid use, the lords of the game would probably have had to do something to curb the offensive production. Steroids can help pitchers as well, of course, but their biggest value is in building muscle mass, and muscles are more valuable to sluggers than to pitchers or speed merchants, so the game was turned over to the guys with the big collar sizes. 60 homers used to be a sacred number - and Sammy Sosa was doing it every year! For the five year period 1998-2002, he AVERAGED about 60!

The game's balance has swayed back and forth from pitching to hitting and back again. The number of runs runs per game was about five per team in the 1880s and early 90s, then leapt to 6.6 in 1893. By 1906 it had fallen all the way to 3.5, but all the tinkering made it soar back up to 5.7 in 1930. It had fallen to an anemic 3.4 in the late 60s, then rose back up to 5.0 around 2000. That variance from era to era is one thing that makes it difficult to compare stats from different times.

The high lords may not have changed the infield dimensions, but they have changed other things to make those dimensions work properly. As for the distance to first being right - no tinkering is now necessary because the modern game, the game as it has been played since 1920, is based on a big, fully committed swing, and most players are right-handed, which makes the play very close to a tie when players hit a grounder to the left side. That just happens to be a good balance. For now. If more players learned to hit left-handed and used the Ichiro strategy of hitting swinging bunts to the left side and running like hell, the bosses of the game might start tinkering with other things, because the tie would be broken and runners would regain the edge. But that's just not today's strategy. (And I don't suppose it will be again, at least not for a long while.)

I do agree with your point about the balance between players creating a sort of equilibrium. Take stolen bases, for example. Back in the 50s and early 60s, nobody stole bases, so people paid little attention to a catcher's arm. This provided an opportunity for guys like Henderson, Lopes, and Raines to come along and steal bases at 90% rates in their best years. If that had been left unchecked, the game would be very different today, but then along came catchers (like Pudge Rodriguez) who shut off the running game, and the base-stealing vogue passed, because trying to steal bases is a poor strategy when the success rate drops below 75%. But wait until the catching ranks fill up with more Mike Piazza types, and then the Raines types will re-appear. Great mandala, circle of life, and all that.

"14. Santaphobia: Fear of Santa Claus. When you were a child, you may have suffered from Santaphobia, the fear of Santa Claus. Why not? Your parents try to teach you not to talk to strangers and then they put you on some fat guy’s lap. The guy is covered in hair and red clothing. What are you supposed to feel? Seriously, there are some children that have the fear for longer than a season or two and it can put a slight crimp in the holiday festivities."

"I accidentally stumbled across an episode of The Price Is Right the other day and it made me angry. It reminded me how much I hate Drew Carey and how sad the world has become without Bob Barker. What happened to the good old days when game show hosts we're lecherous middle-aged men with perfect hair who made inappropriate sexual advances towards every woman with a pulse? What happened to the days when demented whammies ran across our TV screens and Chucky Woolery was considered a God amongst men. All I know is the government needs to figure out a way to let Bob Barker live forever so we can officially start rebuilding the fabric of this country."

That generation's equivalent of "album covers."

OK, maybe not MORE, but at least AS.

"Works of art in and of themselves, these ancient maps reveal a great deal more than the geographical knowledge of our ancestors. They tell stories of war and triumph, reveal myths and biases, and document modes of thought that have long been obsolete."

"The Early Report features the most detailed listings on the Internet of all films scheduled to be released in the upcoming four weeks, including actual and estimated screen counts, running times and ratings. This week's report covers 41 known new movies opening in theatres between Friday 8/7/09 and Friday 8/28/09, plus dozens more titles expanding their runs during this timeframe."

"If you can explain why Jennifer Love Hewitt is playing tennis in a bikini and high heels with awful pancake makeup on her face, I'm all ears"

"Andre the Giant holds the world record for the largest number of beers consumed in a single sitting. These were standard 12-ounce bottles of beer, nothing fancy, but during a six-hour period Andre drank 119 of them."

Well, she sings better than Marlon Brando. I wish we could see and hear more actual singing and dancing.

"Nicollette Sheridan hit the beach in Malibu yesterday with the worlds happiest dog, and it’s crazy to think that this sexy bitch is 46-years-old (Nicollette, not the dog). Her house must be on some wormhole that bends the laws of time and space. Like if we could see inside, President Lincoln would be wrestling Charlemagne, and over by the fireplace would be a gorilla in glasses reading a book in Latin."

Maybe. Or maybe he's just voluntarily moving into territory which is more artistically satisfying to him, but is not as rewarding financially.

I admire what we was trying to do with Funny People. It just didn't quite work.

First of all, you may already have heard that it is not a comedy. It is a tragedy about comedians. It's called Funny People, not Funny Movie. Since the lead characters are professional funny people, it includes plenty of funny lines, but it's an old-fashioned "dyin' woman drama" at heart, a Doug Sirk movie, except with a bitter Adam Sandler as the dyin' woman, and spiced up by a whole bunch of random (and mediocre) dick jokes.

For 90 minutes, I felt it was a truly outstanding movie which found a nice handle on how to present humans interacting honestly in a way which was neither sappy nor boring. Unfortunately, the film is two and a half hours long, and the last hour is pointless and rambling and not very funny at all. Not only that, but the script goes all Hollywood and loses its authenticity in a contrived and prolonged twist where the Sandler character re-connects with and then re-loses his true love.

And then the movie never does end. I think Apatow just decided to stop it when he ran out of film.

So it's too long, has no ending, and is an art film, not a comedy. On the other hand, the first 90 minutes, before the fake-ass field trip to Marin County to find true love, come very close to adding up to a great movie. Are you willing to tolerate the bad to experience the good? I was. On balance, it found it worthwhile. I laughed a few times, and found it mostly truthful. At least it was something different and ambitious in a world full of bullshit cookie-cutter film projects.

To steal a joke from Tina Fey, this remake is targeted at those who loved everything about the original except the fact that it didn't suck.

"And how they got a basketball to wear a bikini, I'll never know."

"Tyler" wrote: "No one part of her body matches any other. Skinny face, huge ass, thin legs. She’s just a bunch of different parts thrown together, like Frankenstein."

"Leisinger said that the anonymous works had been composed by Mozart in 1763 or 1764 when he was seven or eight years old."

My personal preference is the longer one, entitled "Concerto for that pee-pee head, Salieri kid."

Apparently with one person - Jesse Griffin, a part-time kindergarten teaching assistant at Trailside Elementary School in Anchorage! She appears to be pretty much all of the multiple sources used by "Alaska Report." (Oh, the inside info Jesse must cull from those little chatterboxes!) Or so I have heard from multiple sources: both Uncle Scoopy and Johnny Web. Actually she got outed by accident by one of her fellow nutburgers, who redacted her name from a document, but forgot to redact other key info.

Actually, the forger did kind of a good job. The document could pass muster with a few small changes:

• The forger needed to pick a different city of birth. Besides the fact that Mombasa is hundreds of miles from Lake Victoria, where Obama's family actually lived and still live, there is another very large problem with that location. One cannot be born in Kenya in 1961 and also in Mombasa in 1961. If Obama was born in Mombasa in 1961, he would have been born in Zanzibar. Mombasa was ceded to Kenya when Kenya became independent in 1963.
  
• The forger needed to date the document one year later. It is dated February 17, 1964 and has been issued by the Republic of Kenya. That would have worked if the document had been dated February 17, 1965. The Republic of Kenya came into existence on Dec 12, 1964. Between Dec 12, 1963 and Dec 12, 1964, the newly independent nation was known as The Dominion of Kenya.
  

I don't know if this changed the world all that much, but I didn't know that "General Ulysses S. Grant was supposed to share the Ford's Theatre box with Abraham Lincoln, only to back out at the last minute to visit family in Burlington."

"Locals refer to this short stretch of Florida-Alabama Gulf coastline as the "Redneck Riviera," probably because the only people who hang out on its beaches (read: sand dunes and wild sea oats) are locals "vacationing" from Florida and Alabama. Recently, the deserted area has been paved over with condos like the twenty-four-story Turquoise Place, where units start at $1.25 million. But don't buy in yet: The small town suffers regular hurricane damage, and there isn't much beach volleyball on the two-mile stretch of sand, either — one resident told the New York Times last year, "You can go out there and walk for miles and never see another living soul." Makes for nice, long walks, though ..."

What guest would not be impressed when you set the bottle of Fat Bastard wine on the table?

"Yes, bring us a bottle of the New Jersey Landfill Wine. Do you have any 1978."

"Mid-century director William Castle never met a gimmick he didn't love. But his crowning achievement might be the one he employed for the 1959 horror flick, The Tingler. The film's premise is that spine-tingling fear is actually the result of a creature growing at the base of spine — the eponymous Tingler — and it can only be killed by screaming. In the movie, a Tingler escapes from a scientist and heads into a movie theater full of people. To heighten the realism, Castle installed vibrating devices in the seats of unwitting film goers, triggering them at random during this scene. The result: We wouldn't want to be one of the hapless audience members at this one. The fun didn't stop at the Tingler, though. Castle also paid people to scream and faint, only to be carried out on stretchers. He quickly earned a reputation for his gimmicks, and eventually had problems getting theaters to show his films because to put them on was 'just too damn complicated.'"

If this sounds interesting to you there is an excellent PG-rated movie about a fictionalized version of Castle. The movie is Matinee, the director is Joe Dante, and the star is John Goodman.

He allowed no runs and two hits against the Cardinals, while collaring both Holliday and Pujols.

Five hits, four RBI in a Red Sox offensive outburst.

No way. Here's how to tell a bad list: the obvious first choice is nowhere on it. Can you name a case where the original was a Best Picture nominee and the sequel is a hilariously, laughably bad film? If so, you have one up on the guy who wrote this article.

If you define "worst sequel" as "the worst film which is a sequel to some other film," then I believe the answer would have to be Son of the Mask, which is (over)rated 2.0 at IMDb, and is simply a complete waste of time with no possible redeeming value.

If, on the other hand, you define "worst sequel" as "the film with the greatest drop from the quality of the original," then the answer is the example I posed above as a blind. The Exorcist is rated 8.1. The Heretic is rated 3.5. (Numerically, the Mask/Son of the Mask pair equals the 4.6 drop from Exorcist to Heretic.) Richard Burton was drunk during much of The Heretic, and the director got so frustrated with him that he just stopped doing takes and left Burton's flubs in the final cut. Plus it includes a device so low-tech that it would have embarrassed Ed Wood.

"It was a very weak summer weekend, more than 20% below last year, which was in turn soem 10% below the previous year. The numbers look more like autumn results than summer. Funny People came in some 30% below expectations, and Aliens in the Attic was almost as disappointing, with a 20% deficit. Funny People did take the weekend, but with a mere $23 million gross.

The only real bright spot was 500 Days of Summer. Although it expanded to approximately three times as many theaters, 500 Days was again the top performer in terms of revenue per theater, thus grossing 68% more than last week."

"The IRS filed a $6,257,005 lien against Cage (real last name: Coppola) on July 14 in Orleans District Court in Louisiana."

I guess this would explain why Cage has been looking to move some of his properties.

Includes some female nudity.

I was surprised to see that the Apatow movie took in only $8.6 million. I was expecting something more like $12m or $13m. Aliens in the Attic also seems weak at $2.9 million. The torture porn movie, The Collector, actually did a little better than expected, but the expectations were minimal so it only came in at $1.3 million.

It was a weak Friday in general. The top ten pulled in about $36 million, down about a third from last Friday, when the Big Ten came close to $50 million.

Breakdown of cost:

• $4,000,000,000.00 Salaries and consultant fees
  
• $8,500,00 Travel, Entertainment, Lodging First class
  
• $899.95 Computers / IT
  
• $4,925.94 Other (specify: tequila, confetti, sombrero, guns, clown and donkey costumes)
  

Other notes on bid pricing (quantity discounts, etc.): If any competitor comes in lower we will beat that price by $20.

Yeah, all the laughs died out when Cheney left.

This is no joke, by the way. This is from an actual government website.

Example: "The contractor shall have the ability to create cartoons on the spot about BPD jobs."

Vibe and Blender are already dead. Spin and Rolling Stone are gasping for breath. A former Blender writer offers his analysis of the situation.

That ban includes dogs and horses as well as wild animals. Bolivian circuses are like the ice capades without the ice. That might be even more boring than Cirque de Soleil.

Nah.

This online newspaper appears to be basically a source of wild-eyed nutbaggery, especially of the anti-Sarah stripe, so you shouldn't consider it reliable.

Palin's spokesperson has already denied it on Facebook. "Yet again, some so-called journalists have decided to make up a story. There is no truth to the recent 'story' (and story is the correct term for this type of fiction) that the Palins are divorcing. The Palins remain married, committed to each other and their family, and have not purchased land in Montana (last week it was reported to be Long Island). Less than one week ago, Governor Palin asked the media to 'quit making things up.' We appreciate that the more professional journalists decided to question this story before repeating it."

"Fans of Mr. Diamond need not fret, however, as his book will see the light of day despite Gotham's reluctance to play a role in its publication. Mr. Weisfeld announced today that the book has found a home with a small Montreal-based operation called Transit Publishing."

If a little bull shit is enough to power a farm, the United States should be able to end its dependency on Middle East oil if we can just mine Carlos Mencia.

That is a tremendous pick-up. He's one of the best offensive catchers of all time, and the Red Sox are barely hanging on to a playoff position. They have only a 1.5 game lead over the Rangers for the wild-card slot. Frankly, however, I'm not sure whose at-bats Victor is going to take. The Sox have eight solid guys in their line-up, the only exception being Nick Green, and I don't think Victor will be playing shortstop. Some of Victor's ups will come from Varitek's days off, of course, but beyond that ...?

According to Pete Gammons, the Indians made the right moves to get rid of Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez, because they picked up a boatload of strong kids for the future, and they were obviously going nowhere by playing their pat hand.

"This is Obama's 12th appearance on the cover of Time magazine. And this beats President Bush's record of 11 appearances on the cover of Mad magazine." --Conan O'Brien

"This week, Fox commenter Glenn Beck said that President Obama 'has a deep-seated hatred for white people and white culture.' Very controversial. In the President's defense, the White House cited the time Obama had John Tesh over to play Scattergories." --Conan O'Brien

"Sarah Palin announced she's leaving as governor of Alaska and everybody said 'Well, what is she going to do?' She wants to host a radio show, like a daily talk show. And of course, with that, she's going to have to tell people when she's winking." --David Letterman

"President Obama held his first beer summit at the White House today. Obama wanted Bud Light, Crowley wanted Blue Moon, Gates wanted a Red Stripe, and Joe Biden wanted whatever fits in his beer helmet." --Jimmy Fallon

"Yesterday, Vice President Joe Biden held a series of closed door meetings. Not because they were secret. He just couldn't figure out how to open the door." --Jimmy Fallon

"It's a small world - but I wouldn't want to paint it."

Matthew Goode as Ozymandias in Watchman. That was not a good idea. He seemed to be channeling Mike Myers on "Sprockets." I kept expecting him to say "Und now, vee tance."

• Harrison Ford and Jesus: carpenters
  
• Michael Jordan, baseball player. "At age 30, Michael Jordan was the biggest star in the world, had just led the Chicago Bulls to three straight NBA championships... and promptly quit to become a minor league baseball later. This remains one of the most suspicious moves any celebrity has made in our lifetimes. If this happened today, the Internet would actually blow up with people debating the real reason why Jordan quit. The NBA secretly suspended him for gambling but couldn't afford to admit he'd gambled on their games? Scottie Pippen took photos of him having gay sex with Bill Wennington and threatened to blackmail Jordan unless he stepped away? He killed a man? It's all equally plausible (especially the Wennington thing)."
  

Didn't I tell you last week that this was coming? Obviously, Lucifer was not "born," but was created by God's own hands, hence would have no birth certificate. I hate to say "I told you so," but ...

Oh, wait! I just remembered that I LOVE to say "I told you so."