Just for those of you who might be interested: Sky has a good-sized Hogfather page.
Guns? They’re giving them guns now??
Erik Estrada and other lesser celebrities have been sworn in as reserve officers of the city police department here, allowing them to carry badges and guns as part of a reality television series.
About 200 people packed into a Muncie City Hall auditorium for the Tuesday ceremony to swear in the former “CHiPs” star, along with La Toya Jackson, Jack Osbourne, Wee Man and Trish Stratus.
“Allowing them to carry badges and guns?” Carry them where? (shudder)
Not Ireland, I’d guess. We’re probably safe from them here. But if I lived in Muncie, I’d start worrying.
[tags] Erik Estrada, La Toya Jackson, Jack Osbourne, Wee Man, Trish Stratus, Muncie, Indiana, reality, TV, television[/tags]
Hey, look: it’s the congressional version of a Hugo Losers’ Party.
A closed-door panel of defeated and retiring members [of the U.S. Congress], including Katherine Harris, R-Fla.; Clay Shaw, R-Fla.; Mike Bilirakis, R-Fla.; Anne Northup, R-Ky.; J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz.; and Ed Case, D-Hawaii, turned up in the Longworth Building on Tuesday for a career advice panel called “Life After Congress.”
“The main idea is you’re making the transition between being the grovelee versus the groveler,” said former Appropriations Chairman Bob Livingston, who now helms his own lobbying shop. “Before you were a Democrat or Republican. Now you are bipartisan beyond belief.”
He suggested they talk to some of the 37,000 lobbyists in the city and find out what they do, according to our spy in the room.
Oh yeah, just what we all need: more lobbyists. (headclutch)
[tags]Katherine Harris, Clay Shaw, Mike Bilirakis, Anne Northrup, J.D. Hayworth, Ed Case, Congress, lobbyist, lobbying[/tags]
Here you go, folks…
Wouldn’t mind a copy of the “Making Of…” trailer, though, with Our Ter’ in his toymaker costume.
Meanwhile, Terry tells a naughty joke in Berlin:
[tags]Terry Pratchett, Hogfather, Hogswatch, YouTube[/tags]
Somewhere definitive, perhaps, to send your cellphone video of crashing zeppelins…
Beginning tomorrow, media companies Yahoo! and Reuters will allow members of the public to upload or e-mail photos and videos to illustrate breaking news stories. The “You Witness” service, which aims to turn the world’s hundreds of millions of camera phones into a news resource, is available at http://news.yahoo.com/page/youwitnessnews and http://www.reuters.com/youwitness. Yahoo! may eventually solicit user contributions for other areas including sports, entertainment and international sites.
Reuters will edit and vet selected photos and distribute them to other news outlets. Yahoo! and Reuters are working on a plan to compensate contributors whose photos or videos are selected for syndication.
[tags]YouTube, Reuters, Yahoo, youwitnessnews[/tags]
Goodle. It’s Google News…but all good.
Including:
World Peace sparks outpourings of joy
George Lucas to refilm all three Star Wars prequels
Spam drying up
Scientists pack up: “Everything explained”
Rivers, lakes of wine and beer
Golden age back
And more. (sigh) Just the headlines, unfortunately.
[tags]Google, Goodle, humor[/tags]
And too many desserts, if you ask me.
[tags]White House, Barney, dessert, menu[/tags]
I now have a personal referent for the phrase “horrified fascination”. It’s the inability to stop watching this unfold.
The latest developments:
Haha, I’m partying with Paris and you’re not.
Boo hoo. Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I’m gonna go eat worms. (Noises off: “Yes, you’re right, we all hate you, just STFU.”) Also: Im sorry, I luv u, pls tk me bak…
No way. What do I need you for? I’m so important I can show everybody my crotch. Repeatedly. And I’m gonna have a big important show in Las Vegas. And I’m gonna go there for New Year’s and be the star of a big party in the club where you recorded your last flop, and you’re so not invited. AND I’m gonna be the hostess of the Billboard awards with Paris. NYAH NYAH!
(However: inferred but not yet confirmed — Britney gets wind of something that Paris has supposedly said about her. And immediately thereafter:)
And I thought you were my friend! So I’m not doing the Billboards, and you can just stand there and be host all by yourself and everybody’ll know why, you traitor. Take that!
(Paris Update: Well, I’m not doing them either. I didn’t like the jokes they wrote for me. Which were probably about you.)
(headclutch) Dear Goddess, it’s like watching a train wreck. It just keeps… on… going… It can’t get worse than this, really it can’t.
(waits in a resigned manner for the world to prove her wrong)
[tags]K-Fed, britney, spears, federline, paris, hilton, train wreck, gossip[/tags]
…just for its name.
Sitting in front of a veteran agent’s desk are two cases of Red Car Syrah …
(Well, I’d hope it was also a nice wine.) …But working on The Big Meow has brought me a much extended appreciation of what the Red Car system was, and where it went, and how important it was to LA. And the affection in which it’s still held in some quarters is surprising…
Lester Dent’s Pulp Paper Master Fiction Plot
(…The challenge now being to adapt it for novel use, and to find out whether it works. Certainly a lot of the advice seems sound…)
The business of building stories seems not much different from the business of building anything else.
It sometimes saves embarrassment to know nearly as much about the locale as the editor, or enough to fool him.
DON’T TELL ABOUT IT! Show how the thing looked. This is one of the secrets of writing; never tell the reader–show him. (He trembles, roving eyes, slackened jaw, and such.) MAKE THE READER SEE HIM.
Shovel the difficulties more thickly upon the hero.
THE SECRET OF ALL WRITING IS TO MAKE EVERY WORD COUNT.
And equally useful for a writer spending some time in the 1940’s:
Twists, Slugs and Roscoes (A useful dictionary of ’40’s detective slang)
Why get in a car when you can hop in a boiler? Why tell someone to shut up when you can tell them to close their head? Why threaten to discharge a firearm when you can say, “Dust, pal, or I pump lead!”
Why indeed…
[tags]Doc Savage, writing, pulp, 1940s[/tags]
I swear, it’s like watching high-stakes poker on TV. But high-stakes poker played by six-year-olds.
Oh yeah? I want a lot of money or I’m taking the kids because you’re a bad mom.
No I’m not and no you’re not. Read the prenup again and buzz off.
Oh yeah? Well I have a sooper sekrit sex tape and I’m gonna sell it for a gazillion dollars.
No you won’t, I’ll leak it to the filesharers first and nobody’ll pay you for what they can get for free. And I’m selling the house and buying a loads bigger one that you’ll never have been inside of. Nyah nyah.
Oh yeah? Well there is no tape. Hahahahahaha. And I’m going to write a book about you anyway and tell everybody all your secrets.
…(sigh) Okay, what’s the next card down on the table?
(Update: And now we know.)
Haha, I’m partying with Paris and you’re not.
Boo hoo. Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I’m gonna go eat worms. (Noises off: “Yes, you’re right, we all hate you, just STFU.”) Also: Im sorry, I luv u, pls tk me bak…
No way. What do I need you for? I’m so important I can show everybody my crotch. Repeatedly. And I’m gonna have a big important show in Las Vegas. And I’m gonna go there for New Year’s and be the star of a big party in the club where you recorded your last flop, and you’re so not invited. AND I’m gonna be the hostess of the Billboard awards with Paris. NYAH NYAH!
(However: inferred but not yet confirmed — Britney gets wind of something that Paris has supposedly said about her. And immediately thereafter:)
And I thought you were my friend! So I’m not doing the Billboards, and you can just stand there and be host all by yourself and everybody’ll know why, you traitor. Take that!
(headclutch) Dear Goddess, it’s like watching a train wreck. It just keeps… on… going… It can’t get worse than this, really it can’t.
(waits in a resigned manner for the world to prove her wrong)
[tags] Britney, K-Fed, Fed-Ex, prenup, sex tape, did didn’t did didn’t did didn’t did so did not did so did not neener neiner niener[/tags]