Question du jour of the day

So. In a commercial for a security/alarm company, a woman and daughter come in from playing in the yard, and just at that moment a creepy guy breaks down the front door and menaces them. The girl and her mommy run upstairs to answer the ringing phone. My question is twofold: (a) shouldn't they eschew the stairs and run instead for the neighbor's house, or at least somewhere in plain open daylight, where there are likely witnesses, and (b) why would they stop to answer the phone when their lives may be threatened? What if it's one of those computer-dialed, pre-recorded telemarketers? So much for getting help... dial "M" for messed up!

If there's a reason for going upstairs and quivering in a bedroom, waiting for help to come, please, somebody, tell me.

Friday Catblog: Feline Fiesta

The wee beasties get to have their supper on a pretty blanket covered with flowers, with their water dished out in fiesta ware, when they're at Grammaw's.



At my house, it's terra cotta on an ugly, ink-stained and paint-bespeckled indoor/outdoor carpet. We don't take pix of that, to spare them the humiliation of being seen in so unbecoming a venue.


The best venue, however, is Modulator's Friday Ark #209, or, on Sundays, the CotC, this weekend to be hosted by Friends FurEver.

Not Spock's Brain

I just got back from reading Jules Crittenden's takedown of another leftwit television "pundit". Sometimes, when I read the sorts of things that Keith Olberman has said, I'm grateful I don't have cable or satellite tv. Actually, more often than not, I feel that way.

After all, when I take a good, close look at the print version of what is said by the "best that tv has to offer," I half-expect them to ask a line from a classic Star Trek episode: "Brain and brain! What is brain?"

O'Reilly/Geraldo fight. News at 7. Nap at 7:05.

Gads! I thought once the morning newsy show was over, the discussion over Geraldo and his FoxNews compatriot Bill O'Reilly would die down a bit. After all, they were both concerned about the safety of American citizens.

It's just that each of them thought there was only one real issue at hand, in the case they were discussing: Geraldo says it's exclusively about drunk driving, and O'Reilly says it's about illegal immigration and border controls.

Guess what, fellers? It's about both. If the drunk who killed the two teens in Virginia had been deported when he had been first arrested many moons ago, the teens would likely still be alive. Yeah, that's about scofflaw illegal immigrants. And it's about drinking and driving (personally, I've lost too many who were near and dear to me to have much forbearance for the asswipe who drinks and then gets behind the wheel of a vehicle).

And, as a reminder, it's not the first or last time a drunk illegal immigrant has cost somebody's life.

There is no need to come to blows over which issue is greater, here. They're both huge.

And, there's really no news in these guys having shouted over the airwaves, any more than there is news when my seester and I debate. It's not the first stone falling from the edifice of Fox News, for crying out loud. That station will be around a long while, yet, unless the Left manages to outlaw free speech.

Really good comment on US Farm Report

In my early rousing moments on Sundays, I have the tv tuned to the local station which carries the US Farm Report. This morning, the host had a thing or two to say about the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill.

He mentioned that he didn't know whether or not things like storage facilities for peanuts needed federal money or not, and that those sorts of decisions should be left to those who knew more than he... then he went on to say that farmers deserve help from the government as much as anybody else, "but not this way. Supporting our troops does not mean just putting a flag sticker on your combine."


I've never been so proud of my black-dirt-farming roots, I think, as this morning.

6-inch heels in the garden?

Okay, so whose idea was Macy's current spring shoe sale ad?

Usually, when I watch television, it's by taping the show I want to watch, then fast-forwarding through the commercials, but last night there were two shows I really liked aired simultaneously, and, since my recording technology is 20th century, I had to watch one of the shows as it was aired... that meant seeing the commercials (fortunately, I have a "mute" button on the tv, or I'd have cried all night over my life of hardship)(or not).

So, there was this soft-focus scene of bunches of women in pretty party dresses (I think they were supposed to pass for summer shifts and the like) and wearing all sorts of different exceedingly girly shoes. There was even one shot of a foot in a sandal with stiletto heel, not too dissimilar from this one, coming down on a spade.

Uh huh.

I've done a lot of silly things in my short years as a gardener (such as bringing out my spade and my spud fork and working with them, in a rough, nail-filled garden while barefoot in blatant disregard for the risks), but I'd never be so dim as to spread manure in a pair of Manolos. And, while any girl can get dirty in a pair of Jimmy Choos, she shouldn't be heading into real dirt, unless she really doesn't give a rat's patootie about her shoes or her asters, let alone her little asterisk.

This commercial is as annoying as the one for the sleep aid with the floppy-winged luna moth and for the allergy aid with the very butch-sounding Antonio Banderas worker bee. They seem to be trying hard to sell a romantic view of their product, but all they do is demonstrate their lack of contact with greater reality.

At least the ad for another sleep aid, with Abe Lincoln and the muskrat (or is it supposed to be a beaver?), has a sense of humor about it.

But let's not get ridiculous. Get those shoes out of the garden.

Another reason I don't have pay tv

Bill Maher.

The man is a jackass. No, that's insulting to the equine variety. Any man who advocates the murder of a high-ranking, elected member of the government of his own free country is... well, you figure it out.


If HBO continues to carry his show, I will never never never ever pay for their service. I would sooner eat my own earwax than watch that garbage.

Fox thriller addict signs in

I confess, I can't watch Fox tv's thrillers before bedtime. I tape "24" and "Prison Break", then watch them the following morning, as I'm fussing with the cats and doing my knee-flexing exercises and such. Discussing "24" I will leave to the professionals.

I couldn't help noticing that, among other things, "Prison Break" managed to tip its hat to Dominic Purcell's history, giving last night's episode the title of "John Doe". Maybe it was unintentional, maybe not. Still, I really had enjoyed Purcell's 2002 series, and I'm enjoying the new one he's in. Both had plenty of plot twists -- although, I think today's series takes more gleeful swings off its original pathway, and isn't at all science-fiction-y (more simple paranoid conspiracy theory. No. Wait. That is science fiction, then, isn't it?).

Do you suppose it was merely accidental that the villain of the series, last season, who murdered her way into the Oval Office, was a Hillary Clinton lookalike? And, now that the actress who portrayed "Madam President" is playing some annoying character in the new-ish nighttime soap, "Brothers and Sisters," over at ABC, will the replacement performer have that same quality of harpiness?

Hmmm.

And, I'm glad to see that Willliam Fichtner's character, Agent Mahone, is still walking. He's a really useful loose cannon to have in the middle of everything. To my mind, he's scarier than T-Bag.

I could be developing a crush on the writers of this show.