My Visited States

Dara posted hers, and here's my map of visited states. I have more of the middle of the country than her, but a couple states barely made it. I've only had a hand or something in Utah (at the four corners), And I went to South Dakota for like 10 minutes when I was in Sioux City, Iowa. And I flew into Gulfport, Mississippi but drove straight to New Orleans. I drove through the Texas panhandle and have been through on airplanes a couple times, but I've never really BEEN to Texas. And I've gotten gas in Michigan when driving along the Indiana/Michigan border, and I've flown through the Detroit airport a few times, but I've never really BEEN to Michigan either.



create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

Alan Colmes Dead?

This story is a couple weeks old, but I didn't see it until just now.

According to a newspaper called The Onion, Alan Colmes died, and it went unreported on Hannity and Colmes.

I find this outrageous. I mean, a cohost of a major television news show dies and they don't even report it on the tv show? This is completely innappropriate.

Imagine if Regis died and Kelly said nothing? If Tony Kornheiser died and Michael Wilbon just kept screaming about football? If Paul Schaeffer died, and Letterman just went straight on to the Top Ten list? Come on, Hannity.

***UPDATE***

I have just learned from Gene Weingarten, via Dara, that the Onion is apparently a "satirical" newspaper.

My apologies to Sean Hannity, who I'm sure is an upstanding citizen who is not a moron and would never compare voting for Hillary Clinton to voting for Hamas or Hezbollah.

Kinky Friedman for Governor

Dara posted about Kinky today, and I've been meaning to post about him for a while as well.

In case you don't know, Kinky Friedman is a singer, entertainer, author, comedian, Jewish cowboy, etc. He has a band, The Texas Jewboys,that sings songs like "They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus Anymore."

And he's running for governor of Texas.

He's running an unorthodox campaign that is being run by Jesse Ventura's former campaign manager, and he's doing pretty well in the polls.

My honest prediction... Kinky will win.

I'm not kidding. Governor Perry has 38% in the Rasmussen poll, Kinky has 20% and the other independent and the Democrat in the race trail him.

But numbers looked even worse for Jesse Ventura at this point in the race in Minnesota. The polls are looking at likely voters, but as Kinky has said, he's "running against apathy." New voters will show up to the polls in droves and Kinky will win.

Politically he's kind of all over the place, I saw him interviewed on 60 Miuntes a while back, and he says he's the only candidate you'll ever meet that supports prayer in school AND gay marriage (I'm with him on the latter but not the former). He seems to have about the right positions on Education, Healthcare and Renewable Energy.

I love it when candidates shake up the system. Dara's supporting Kinky, and so am I. I know the world has been on the edge of its seat waiting for this, but I endorse Kinky Friedman for Governor.

His campaign slogans include "Why the Hell Not?" and "How Hard Can it Be?" Indeed, how hard can it be to be governor of Texas?

All Star Game Thoughts

King Kaufman had a decent article today that covers some of my thoughts...

I was at a bar watching the game so I didn't get all the audio, but I agree with King that it's terrible that we have to watch seven more years of baseball on Fox, and that Fox generally seems to hate baseball. Case in point: stopping the game between innings to honor Roberto Clemente was extemely lame. Don't get me wrong. Roberto Clemente deserved to get honored. BEFORE the game. Not between innings.

As a Cardinals fan, I'm obviously disappointed the National League lost.
Especially in the "This Time It Counts" era, an era that needs to end. Granted, despite my prediction, the Cardinals need alot of work to get to the World Series, and home field advantage wouldn't have made a lick of a difference vs. the Red Sox in 2004.... but seriously, the All Star Game shouldn't have an impact on the World Series.

I think the All Star Game SHOULD be an exhibition, but since "it counts," I can respect Phil Garner and Ozzie Guillen's decision not to use every player on the bench. As for the Cards, Carpenter is only a borderline All Star this year anyway, so I don't care that much that he didn't play. However, I was disappointed that Rolen didn't play. He deserved to be in the game... and Garner was given a golden opportunity to put him in. With the National League up 2-1 going into the 9th, Garner could have put Rolen in for Cabrera on defense. Rolen is a much better defensive third baseman than Cabrera, and he probably would have made the third out in the 9th... instead, the American League went on to win.

So I'm sorry, Cubs, Nationals and Pirates fans.... you just lost home field advantage in the World Series.

Kirk Cameron

Remember Kirk Cameron?



Yes, that Kirk Cameron?

So I knew that Kirk had gone evangelical and was starring in poorly made movies with Christian themes and such, but had never witnessed it first hand until last night.

So I was looking for a way to pass the time while eating dinner last night, and saw on TBN the last 10 minutes of Kirk Cameron's evangelical show, "The Way of the Master." Basically, it was Kirk and some other quasi-Australian-or-something guy spouting about the ways of the Lord. The segment I saw was Kirk going around to malls or somewhere doing man-on-the-street style interviews asking people how many of the ten commandments they could name... and then asking other people how many beers they could name. Kirk laments about how people seem to know more about beer than the ten commandments (by the way, I could name WAY more beers than the people he interviewed).

Then at the end he advertises his video series, and makes an appeal to Christians watching to save the souls of those that they love before they end up dying without the Lord and going to Hell. It was touching. Really.

After that, I had to go online and see what I could find about Kirk. The first thing I found was this.



It's a video called "The Athiest's Nightmare," a short clip from the show in which the other dude explains that there has to be a God because it's so easy to eat bananas. They're made perfectly, fit into the hand, easy to open and peel, fits perfectly into the mouth, etc... And only God could have made something so perfect.

A couple comments here....

1) It was extremely homoerotic
2) Why did God make pineapples so frickin' hard to eat?

The next thing I found was this grainy clip of Kirk onThe O'Reilly Factor.



Finally, I found the holy grail.

www.wayofthemaster.com

Let the intro load up for a starter, it's pretty damn entertaining. Then click wherever you want, you can't go wrong. Although I highly recommend watching the video on intelligent design vs. evolution (which I only watched a couple minutes of, but, man, was it unconvincing).

Revisiting and Revising Baseball Predictions

It's the All Star Break, so it's a good time to go back and visit my preseason predictions.

AL East: Yankees. Because that's the way the world works. Even if they don't look as good on paper, they'll do something mid-season if it's not gelling.

They're currently in second, three games out. I'm sticking with this prediction.

AL Central: White Sox. They won it all last year, they added depth to their rotation, and they added Jim Thome. No one will stop them in the central.

Well, they've been awfully good, but the "no one will stop them in the central" prediction is a bit more iffy. The Tigers, who no one would have predicted would be there, are in first place, and the Twins look awfully good too. Still, I'm sticking with this prediction.

AL West: Angels. I think this is a weak division, and the Angels will squeak through.

The Angels are two games out, with a tie for first atop the division between the A's and Rangers. Ah, what the heck. I'll stick with this prediction as well.

AL Wild Card: Blue Jays. It's not their offseason spending that will get them the wild card. It's the slipping Red Sox, and the continued greatness of Roy Halladay.

This prediction doesn't look so great to me anymore. And the Red Sox don't seem to be slipping. But it's the Tigers that have the great record at the moment, and while I think the White Sox will end up on top, I'm going with the Tigers for the Wild Card.

AL Champs: White Sox.

Sticking with it.

AL Cy Young: Roy Halladay.

They could go with the Red Sox closer, Papelbon, but I'm sticking with Halladay.

AL MVP: Alex Rodriguez.

Still a very good player, as some Yankees fans don't seem to understand, but not a likely MVP at this point. There are several players who could snag it, but I'm now predicting David Ortiz will rise above the pack.

NL East: Braves. See my Yankee comments. Mets continue their streak of spending alot of money and it not panning out.

Ok. I was nowhere close on this one. The Mets are panning out in a major way and Braves are sucking it up like it's 1989. Revised prediction: The Mets will win the NL East. Duh.

NL Central: Cardinals. I'll be accused of bias here, but who else is in the Central? Really? The Cubs are starting Prior and Wood on the DL, the Brewers are improving but not enough to knock off the Cards, the same for the Pirates, the Astros are aging and the Reds are the Reds.

The Cards are indeed in first, but the Reds are more than just the Reds. The Cards pitching staff is shaky, and if for no other reason than to whip my team into shape, I'm revising my prediction. The Reds will win the NL Central.

NL West: Dodgers. Just a hunch.

They're two games behind the Padres, and I'm sticking with my hunch.

NL Wild Card: Brewers. Why not? They've got the most underrated pitching staff in baseball.

The Brew Crew are holding their own, and I feel fairly strongly that some team from the Central will win the Wild Card. But did your really think I was leaving my team out of the playoffs? Revised prediction: The Cards will win the NL Wild Card.

NL Champs: Cardinals. Now prove me right, team.

The Cards will shape up for the playoffs and I'll keep my prediction.

NL Cy Young: Jake Peavy.

Ding ding ding ding ding! We have a winner for my worst prediction of the preseason! Peavy is 4-8 with a 4.46 ERA. Even though he's had some bad luck and should be more like 6-6, not exactly a Cy Young type season. Let me try this one again. Brandon Webb will win the NL Cy Young award.

NL MVP: Albert Pujols.

Even with his 17 days on the DL, he has the best stats in the National League. I'm sticking with this one.

Your 2006 World Champion St. Louis Cardinals. Did you really expect me to say anything else?

Seriously, did you expect me to change my mind on this one?

The Other Superman Movie

So Dara has probably been wondering when I was going to post about the new Superman movie. I guess I just wasn't that motivated right after I saw it (which was the second day it was in theaters)....

It was a good movie, not spectacular, but good. It wasn't as good as either the Spiderman or X-Men franchises, and it wasn't as good as the original Superman movie, but it was adequate. Brandon Routh was good. Kevin Spacey was ok, but I yearned for Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor.

Anyhow, it's not the only Superman movie coming out this year, and the other one looks pretty interesting too. Yes, Ben Affleck is playing Superman. Well, not exactly. He's actually playing George Reeves, who once played Superman on TV. More specifically, the movie will deal with the mysterious death of George Reeves. With a cast that includes Adrien Brody, Diane Lane, and Bob Hoskins, I'm pretty curious.

So what does the Plane represent?

I'm with Amelie Gillette:

Blogging about Snakes on a Plane just isn't fun anymore. I'm kinda over the hype. Ha ha, it was a good joke, and kudos to Sam Jackson for getting it made, but the whole movie is basically a joke, and I'm not going to rush to the theater to see it (although it's definitely going to be worth renting eventually).

But the worst part, as Amelie notes, is that the simplicity of the joke may be getting lost. Let's go back to what Sam said:

They had already changed the title when I got to Canada to start shooting. I let it go for a while. Then one day the producers were standing there, and I'm saying, 'so are you seriously going to leave (the) name on this?" And they're going, 'Yeah, we don't want to give too much away to the audience.' I'm like, 'Yeah, you do. That's the way you get them in there. Nobody wants to see Pacific Air Flight 121. People want to see Snakes on a Plane.'

Contrast that with this:

Anyway, the song is by Cobra Starship, a side-project of Gabe Suporta (of the band Midtown), who wants his song "Snakes On A Plane (Bring It)" to mean something more than, say, "there are actual, literal snakes on an actual, literal plane...so bring it." He told MTV.com:

"We actually didn't want to make it too literal about snakes on a plane, so we used a metaphor of snakes being like shady dudes," Saporta said on the set of the video.

Memo to Cobra Starship (get it? Cobra? Snakes?):

The Snakes should represent.... Snakes. The Plane should represent..... a Plane.

That's it. Snakes. A Plane. What's so hard to understand?