"Kelly Brook and Julie Goodyear, who played Bet Lynch in Coronation Street, are to bare all in the West End play Calendar Girls."

"I think Obama is starting to get a little desperate. After losing the Olympics last week, he scaled back a little bit. Like, today, he was in New York, making the case for Chicago-style pizza." --Jay Leno

"As you know, President Obama flew to Denmark, made his pitch. The international committee voted. Chicago finished last, dead last. Well, I guess the committee thought Chicago already had enough amateur athletes with the White Sox and the Cubs." --Jay Leno

"You know what the mistake was? We shouldn't have sent President Obama over there to get the votes. We should have sent Acorn." --Jay Leno

"At the box office this weekend, the movie 'Zombieland' was No. 1. It beat Michael Moore's new documentary. 'Zombieland' and the Michael Moore movie are very different, of course. One has a disgusting, lumbering monster that eats everything in its path, and the other one has zombies." --Craig Ferguson

Submitter wrote:

Bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley embarrasses himself and the proud people of the Appalachians by perpetuating negative stereotypes with his bastardization of his own signature song, "Man of Constant Sorrow." (Watch for the part about the Statue of Liberty and about Eric Conn learning to speak Spanish for some side-splitting laughs)."

"This is both a political endorsement for Barack Obama AND a commercial for Kentucky Welfare lawyer and renowned shyster Eric C. Conn. You may remember Conn as the man who dated porn star Raven Riley until the public found out, then he dumped her because he thought that revelation would damaage his future political aspirations. Of course, Ms Riley promptly made her own anti-Conn video and posted it on YouTube. That video is here. Jesco White, "the dancing outlaw" is also featured in the video, and some fine eye candy from Obama Girl, who looks suspiciously like Sheryl Crow with tits."

"One of the factors that set The Twilight Zone apart was that the writers were absolutely in charge. All the others involved — the producers, directors, cinematographers, set designers, and actors — were there to implement the writers’ vision. It helped that the head writer, Serling, was also the creator, executive producer, and co-owner. No one second-guessed his scripts, and he in turn never undercut his freelancers. The result was an uncommonly well-scripted show."

"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 40 known new movies opening in theatres between Wednesday 10/7/09 and Friday 10/30/09, plus dozens more titles expanding their runs during this timeframe."

Whatta bunch o' pussies! Why, I pour 36 beers just on my morning Cheerios.

What's worse, if you drink high-alcohol beer, you can only consume 24 cans per day. They cut that group back a little bit because they need some people to be the designated drivers.

Plentry of pics, vids, memories.

"Under my plan, seniors are going to be killed the way they want to be killed, end of story. If your grandmother would rather be euthanized in the privacy of her own home than be gutted and hanged on a high school soccer field, she is entitled to that right."

For some reason they think he might be a flight risk.

I guess I shouldn't be shocked because I really don't know that much about the Swiss that doesn't involve holey cheese and cuckoo clocks, but for some reason I am surprised to see the Swiss behaving as if laws were important.

In my younger years I had the privilege of living in the top two: Norway and Australia, and I found them very nice, indeed. The complete 229-page report is linked from the article above.

"I know why you're happy tonight. Because after all these months of seeing these tea baggers hold up signs of Obama with the Hitler mustache painted on, we have proof now that Obama isn't Hitler. Because when Hitler tried to get the Olympics he got it." --Bill Maher

"Well, let's be big about it. Congratulations to the citizens of Rio de Janeiro. They spent all day today partying, doing the samba in the streets with the breasts hanging out and then they heard about the Olympics and then they were even more thrilled." --Bill Maher

"With the Olympic Committee, it came down to one simple question -- where do you want to go to spend your summer vacation? The land where super models invented bikini wax? The land where fat guys invented deep dish pizza?" --Bill Maher

"A producer for '48 Hours' was arrested Thursday for attempting a stupid human trick. It was reported that the blackmailer was saying he was going to reveal embarrassing details about Letterman's life. For instance, after sex he would say, 'Stay tuned for Craig Ferguson.'" --Seth Meyers

"Experts say this $5 billion project of President Obama's could lead to the development of dozens of life-saving medical treatments that your insurance company could one day turn you down for." --Jay Leno

"But now, Obama is in Copenhagen. He's trying to get the Olympics in Chicago, while Iran is getting ready to nuke the world. This could explain Obama's new Secret Service code name, 'President Bush.'" --Jimmy Fallon

"Sarah Palin's new autobiography doesn't come out until November, but it is already No. 1 on Amazon. And if you go to the website, it says, 'People who bought this book also bought no other books in their entire life.'" --Jimmy Fallon

Here's what's scary: five years ago she looked young enough to play my granddaughter in a movie. Now she could play my sister, and nobody would bat an eyelash.

And I'm not kidding. If I were joking I would have said "my older sister."

The publishing giant, bleeding red ink, also closed other titles and mandated severe budget cutbacks elsewhere.

"Zombieland is pretty fucking funny. It's as gory as the medics tent at a Renaissance Faire for skinheads, and it moves along at a nice clip without a lot of fancy-director-blue-filter horseshit to let you know how painfully romantic it all is. The movie has its flaws, but they're nothing compared to how funny Bill Murray's cameo is."

Zombieland proved to be a winner, with $25 million at the box and 89% positive reviews.

As suggested by Friday's results, the only real bomb was the Drew Barrymore roller derby film, which generated zero interest despite surprisingly enthusiastic reviews. It finished the weekend in a tie with Michael Moore's latest.

The other new releases came in quite close to their modest expectations. Overall, the weekend finished virtually even with last year's comparable period. Only a tenth of a percent separate the two weekends (pending this year's final numbers, of course).

• It seemed absolutely impossible that A-Rod could continue his streak of 30 HR, 100 RBI seasons (he'd done that 11 times in a row before this year). He missed about 40 games, and went into the final game of the season needing two homers and seven RBI. Impossible, right? So what did he do in the season's last game? Hit two homers and knocked in exactly seven, allowing him to finish the year with exactly 30 homers and exactly 100 RBI!
  

  By the way, A-Rod did that all in one inning. That is the only time in the long history of the American Lague that anyone ever knocked in more than six in an inning.
  

• This year's Yankees broke the team record for most homers, which was set in 1961 when Mantle and Maris staged their assault on Ruth's cherished record. The 2009 Yankees had seven players with 20 or more homers. Jeter finished eighth on the team with 18!
  

Lincecum is probably my favorite pitcher to watch, and his strikeouts are impressive, but his season's stats have been artifically inflated by a highly favorable home park. Away from San Francisco he is 5-5 with a 3.21 ERA. Moreover, the team's record is only 19-13 (.594) in his starts, compared to 66-61 (.520) in games started by other guys. That suggests he has only added about 2.5 wins compared to what their other starters would have done in 32 games. Not Cy Young territory. Not this year.

On the other hand, Carpenter's spectacular W-L percentage is deceptive. The Cards have actually done better in Wainwright's starts

• Carpenter's starts: 18-10 .643
  
• Wainwright's starts: 23-11 .676
  
• other starters (through 161 games): 50-49 .505
  

Based on the comparison to the other starters (in other words assuming a .505 record without them), Carpenter added 4 wins, Wainwright 6. Four wins is not normally in the stratosphere of post-season honors, but six is getting there.

Neither total is earth-shattering. Randy Johnson added more than 13 wins in his 1995 year. Steve Carlton added more than 18 in his incredible 1972 performance. (The team was 29-12 in his starts, 30-85 in all other games.)

Road stats don't provide much differentiation between Carpenter and Wainwright. Carpenter is 9-2 with a 2.05 ERA, which is the second-best road ERA in the NL (the Phillies' rookie J.A. Happ is first). That's impressive, but Wainwright is 12-1 on the road, which is equally impressive, although his road ERA is less imposing at 3.39.

Bottom line: it's very difficult to distinguish between them, but don't be swayed by Carpenter's W-L record. He may be the right choice, but that's the wrong reason.

Zombieland was expected to do pretty well, but it really dominated the day. It grossed more than $9 million and the next best film didn't even reach $4m

The Toy Story 3D package finished third with a disappointing $3m. Ricky Gervais and Jennifer Garner were just below that. The bomb of the week was the Drew Barrymore comedy about roller derby, which barely edged out Michael Moore's new film, despite being in almost twice as many theaters.

Moore's film finished in third place in the per-theater category (higher than Gervais and Garner.)

"The Cubs' entire infield and outfield could have gone out for some deep-dish the way Rich Harden pitched in this April 15 all-timer against the Rockies:

3 IP, 5 H, 4 BB, 8 K.

Yep, the fielders in this stint were clearly optional -- because none of them (except the catcher) got mixed up in a single out. Harden faced 17 hitters, and all 17 either struck out, walked or got a hit -- an achievement in defensive indifference that no other pitcher in the past 80 seasons has duplicated in a start that long."

"Rihanna, Girl…I See Yo’ Nipples! Here’s Rihanna in Paris, the ever so sexy Rihanna, wearing what just might be the sexiest outfit ever: a black sheer dress, which revealed her famous right nipple ring and black thong with bare ass."

In case you are wondering, Elvis is the Republican.

This is Google's bot misfiring again (Firefox keys off the same info). When I go to my "webmaster tools" page for othercrap.com, it says "Status of the latest badware review for this site: A review for this site has finished. The site was found clean. The badware warnings from web search are being removed. Please note that it can take some time for this change to propagate."

It has said that now for more than a day, but the change has apparently not rippled through their system, or something.

Actually, they have managed to top that for sheer ineptmess. Google is now saying that www.scoopy.net has turned into an attack site, even though not a single comma or semicolon has changed on that URL since about 2003!

Needless to say, there is no badware or malware distribution going on at either site. You can see the code for yourself, if you know how to read it. Nothing but straight .htm code and ad scripts from Amazon and Google.

Anyway, if you want to visit the sites while you wait for them to clean up their act, there are two fixes: (1) use Bing for your search engine; (2) if you use Firefox, go to the Firefox menu Tools/Options/Security and uncheck "Block reported attack sites."

"July 22 1941. The girl next door is getting married. Anne Frank is leaning out of the window of her house in Amsterdam to get a good look at the bride and groom. It is the only time Anne Frank has ever been captured on film. At the time of her wedding, the bride lived on the second floor at Merwedeplein 39. The Frank family lived at number 37, also on the second floor. The Anne Frank House can offer you this film footage thanks to the cooperation of the couple."

"24 Production Stills of Naked WWE Diva Candice Michelle, A Lesbian Lover, and a Water Hose"

"But Larry wants to promote his show's end to the Seinfeld diaspora, after once famously swearing that he would never stage a reunion. While Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Jerry Seinfeld have all been on previous Curb episodes as individuals, the Seinfeld gang has never appeared together on the show. Now, the foursome, including Michael Richards, returns as their reunion story line unfolds over five episodes.

The conceit for Sunday night's episode is comically simple: Larry's desire to win back his (on-screen) ex-wife, Cheryl, now an actress, overrides his utter disdain for a Seinfeld network special. The reunion show will go on, after all, and he promises to cast his ex in it. Of course, problems ensue. Many, many problems."

Zombieland is the biggest gorilla in the room. Working with 3000 theaters and boasting 89% positive reviews so far, it ought to take the #1 spot with a number in the 20s, and may do even better.

The re-release of the Toy Story films is expected to take third place; the Roller Derby film is expected to finish fifth; the Ricky Gervais film is slated for seventh.

Michael Moore is expected to gross enough per screen to compensate for limited distro, and is likely to finish around 8th.

It's a weekend for comedy lovers. There are essentially five new films this week, all comedies of some type, all with at least decent reviews (some far better).

• Capitalism: A Love Story, Michael Moore's latest mockumentary. 73% positive reviews; approximately 1000 theaters.
  
• The Invention of Lying, a comedy with Ricky Gervais and Jennifer Garner. 56% positive reviews; 1700 theaters.
  
• Toy Story /Toy Story 2 in 3D. 100% positive reviews for both films; 1700 theaters.
  
• Whip It, a Drew Barrymore comedy about Roller Derby, starring that Juno chick. 75% positive reviews; 1700 theaters.
  
• Zombieland, a zombie comedy starring Woody Harrelson. 89% positive reviews; 3000 theaters.
  

"Well, a new book is coming out -- oh, boy, this is unbelievable -- by John Edwards' campaign official, a guy named Andrew Young. I guess they were quite close friends. Young now says there is sex tape of John Edwards and his mistress. You know, I think it is true, because at one point on the tape, at the height of passion, you can hear John Edwards screaming out his own name." --Jay Leno

"Senator Chris Dodd, who is head of the Senate Banking Committee, is pushing for one super-regulator to oversee all the banks. He said his goal to restore more confidence in the banking system. You know what would restore more confidence in the banking system? If Chris Dodd wasn't head of the Senate Banking Committee." --Jay Leno

"Nancy Pelosi attended the U2 concert last night in Washington, D.C., as Bono's personal guest. She almost shed a tear. But she doesn't have tear ducts." --Jimmy Fallon

Examples:

VETERINARY MEDICINE PRIZE: Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK, for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.

PEACE PRIZE: Stephan Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl of the University of Bern, Switzerland, for determining — by experiment — whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or with an empty bottle.

PHYSICS PRIZE: Katherine K. Whitcome of the University of Cincinnati, USA, Daniel E. Lieberman of Harvard University, USA, and Liza J. Shapiro of the University of Texas, USA, for analytically determining why pregnant women don't tip over.

"The creepy stuff was that I have had sex with women who work for me on this show," Letterman told the stunned audience, which seemed unsure how to react to the story, laughing and applauding at times and exclaiming at others.

#1: the toilet

Very sexy, but it's not sheer over the important stuff.

(It's Russian)

We have regained the lead in the carnival cold war. Your move, Boris!

"Many of the Hollywood elite defending Roman Polasnki say he shouldn't go to jail just because he drugged a child then fucked her in the ass while she begged him to stop, and that he's already suffered enough by living his life in exile. He's French, so I'm not sure how a French guy living in France is considered 'exile' but whatever. The point is he's suffered. Or something.

But don't think that Roman is unwilling to pay for his crimes. In fact he's agreed to be placed under house arrest. Specifically, this chalet outside Gstaad, Switzerland, where singing bluebirds presumably pull your sheets back in the morning and Mr Sun gives you a big thumbs up. Oh that poor man. He'll never make it!"

The Swedish government retains the right to overrule parents when they want to give their children silly names. Two lower courts overruled these particular people, but they won on appeal. Their son's name will therefore be Q Rehnberg.

The courts were less satisfied with the name given to his sister, Pussy Galore Rehnberg.

"I have been abducted by aliens for years and found stopabductions.com by a happy coincidence. The Thought Screen Helmet, invented by an expert, has stopped the unwelcome visitations and has raised me and my family`s quality of life. Therefore I highly recommend it."