Ahh just a few more hours at the condo here in West Palm before I go home to my life of slavery to the man and a nice WiFi connection (c'mon dad, please get back in the game).

This was definitely a bad weekend to head out of town because so much happened and I was getting so many page hits (including Ken Layne of SPLOID!, hey Ken, any chance of pushing an idea to Nick Denton for me?, I could use the $2,500/month). But I'm leaving this open thread for discussion and I'll be back in full force next week.

New XBox: Yeah baby! Apparently this puppy is gonna be wireless too (!!!). It'll have a full media player system, DVD compitable out the box, a few USB cables for digital photos, crazy gaming for live gamers. Basically it's my Christmas gift and the important people know this. So my goal between now and then is to beat Halo 2 and beat GTA: San Andreas (already given up on Vice City). However, if the new system isn't backwards compatible, that would suck. Not enough to where I'm not buying it, but it would suck.

New XBox Backward Compatible? Microsoft Won't Say [Seattle P-I]
MTV Pimps XBox 360 [Wired]
A Primetime Party for XBox [MSNBC]


Dennis Miller Gets Canceled: I haven't really ever seen this guy's CNBC show but what happened to him? Dennis Miller used to be funny, edgy, interesting, provocative. Did Jon Stewart steal it from him during a midnight raid or something? He made SNL's Weekend Update what it was and now he's getting canceled from a network that's happy drawing a 1.0 share? I guess the ghost of Howard Cosell is still haunting him after ruining Monday Night Football.

Business Network Cancels Miller [Reuters]


Bolton Gets Put to a Vote: This didn't surprise me and to be honest it needed to happen. Despite the fact that I think he's about the worst ambassador to ever be nominated, he should get a full vote from the Senate. Will he pass? I would guess so, my prediction would be 52-48. I doubt he'll change his style since being a bully has gotten him this far, but I hope he gets a better rug on his head.

Should John Bolton Be U.N. Ambassador [BBC]
In Face of Opposition, Bush Renews Support for Bolton [NYT]
Bolton Moves on to Bonus Round [The Spoof]


Everybody Loves Series Finales: Actually I haven't watched one since Seinfeld. And that was extremely disappointing, especially compared to the Newhart Show's great a few years before and The Wonder Years' one the year before that. I haven't seen Everyone Loves Raymond with the exception of a couple of times in syndication, proving that I am not part of "Everyone". But from what I hear, it's a quality little sitcom and far more entertaining than Friends (which I've never seen, never will see and doesn't exist).

Loving on Raymond for the Last Time [E! Online]
Surprising Number of Americans Depise Raymond [YubaNet]


And Elsewhere: There really was a lot of cool stuff I came across this week so rather than bore you by talking about it, just read what you like and leave the rest for the dogs.

More Love for the 20/30 Diet [Open Loops]
D.C.'s New Power Couple: Hillary and....Newt? [NYT]
Free MP3 Downloads for People Too Dumb to Use WinMX [Amazon]
Five Habits of Millionaires [Monster]
Tara Reid Reminds Me How Much I Miss Jules Anser [Page Six]
Searching for David Chappelle [Defamer]
Wal-Mart Looks to Nazis for Image Help [Washington Post]
More Fun From Jacko Trial [NYT]
Cancer Drugs Will Cost [Post-Gazette]

Enjoy the Weekend.

Two days left on my West Palm Beach sabbatical. Today Mom and I went to the Indian Casino in Hollywood (median age of patrons: 81) and to the Sawgrass Mill Shopping Monster. That's one big ass mall, with a lot of useless shit in it. It's got like 14 anchor stores and full size Books-A-Million, Sports Authority and others.

Needless to say I'm still away (although I'm steady compiling for a weekender). I found a nugget on 5 Things to Simplify Your Life. I don't agree with much of it because it seems to be preaching ignorance instead of simplicity. But I'm willing to let people think for themselves.

How to Simplify Your Life in 2005 [Sound Money Tips]
The Chronic Curmudgeon [New Link (Until I get home to re-do my links)]

He has checked into a mental hospital in South Africa. No one is confirming drugs or exhaustion. Personally I believe he had or is having the same nervous breakdown that Martin Lawrence suffered from a couple of years ago. I still think he'll be fine but I wouldn't expect Season 3 this year.

My posting will be light over the next two days. I'm visiting my parents and they don't have wireless anymore.

Chappelle Reportedly Checks Into Facility [AP]
Stress of Success Said to Affect Comic Chappelle [Sun-Sentinel]

A couple of fairly goofy, interesting things out there.

Wacky Ministers Invade Public Schools to Rid World of Gays: You gotta give it to the religious right, they truly believe no place is beyond their reach. There is legislation up for passage in the upcoming Southern Baptists Convention for churches to "investigate" the local gay activities in their school districts. [WorldNet]

Now see, I know that the left has been told to quit making fun of these people and try to start engaging them. See I disagree, those people in that story need to be made fun of and I don't care how many votes it might cost someone, the message has to be clear -- I'm NOT involved with those assholes.

And to think, it's not as if high school wasn't tough enough for kids. Between the demands on wearing the right clothes and hooking up with the right cheerleader, high schoolers have enough problems without the church being involved. So I hope baptist ministers will ignore this and concentrate on the things they do well -- eating and sweating.

Bombs? What Bombs: I'm note really sure what to think of John Tierney yet. I find him to be fairly provocative but I'm not sure what happened to him this week. He is saying that the media should start ignoring bombing attacks and other crimes because it's not a true reflection of what's really going on [NYT].

Huh?. Bomb attacks aren't a true reflection of what's going on in Iraq? Even worse he seems to support a form of government censorship over these things. I really have no clue where he's going with this. Unless he really believes that war crimes are media sensationalism and that's a scary thought.

Man, I'm in a funk this morning. I am not made to work Mondays, it's just not in me. Granted I'm stoked Ken Layne actually found this site and thought enough of it to explain the changes SPLOID! is going to be going through. But I'm a tired stoked.

Even the new System of a Down song, as good as it is, can't get me past these heavy eyelids. But let's see what's out there.

Runaway Bride: This story just won't go away. Now we find out this flake has been arrested five times in the past. Some for shoplifting and one for having abnormally big eyes. My god, lay off the frappucinos please. [Access North GA]. Apparently her toast is on sale at ebay or something but I'm not linking that.

My thoughts on this woman -- well she's an idiot. The only person dumber is whoever would want to marry her.

Huffington Post Day 2: Damn this site is getting RAILED. There's an LA Weekly column that just rips it to shreds. Seems more personal than professional criticism so I'll skip it. The site should either be a blog, which might work, or another news site, which will fail. The blog aspect is decent. There's a great piece from Joe Scarborough on the genocide in Sudan and the fact that nobody from the White House to Amnesty International wants to do anything about it. And Larry David has a funny piece on John Bolton. Even Bill Maher contributed. The contributors list is quite impressive and they do allow comments and she has an impressive blogroll that I'm sure Mudge and I will both try to get linked on at some point.

The news aspect is terrible. A few of the items (i.e. Clinton's war on obesity) are outdated by a week. There's no focus to it and frankly the same news breaks at a dozen other blogs about six hours earlier. She needs to invest in someone who's job is to surf the wires every minute of the day. The headlines aren't great, although the dog adopting the baby in Kenya one did the job.

I did find one, fairly decent review [E&P] and another one that's more objective [Outside the Beltway].

Will the site fail? I don't think so. Not in the long run. The first day sucked, but I expected it to suck. The first day at anything is pretty damn tough. It just needs to focus itself in the right direction and put a foot on the gas pedal.

Speaking of blogs. The Times had a feature on Gawker headman Nick Denton. I link to a few Gawker sites myself and have about nine of them on my newsreader. [NYT] The Times is actually going to devote a weekly column in its biz section for blogs.

It's a slow news day so I'm going to read about the leaks from the launch of the New XBox. I'm definitely putting this on my Christmas list. [USA Today]

Normally I'm not a Monday poster because normally I have Monday's off and like to run errands. Today is different, so I'll post.

I hope all the mother's had a Happy Mother's Day and all the gentlemen here at least took a second to tell their moms and/or mother-like figures thank you for the time invested in our development.

BTW, I'm going to stop using small type on this blog because Curmudgeon can't see and god knows I don't want anyone to go blind. Speaking of which, I wonder what he's up to these days [link]

Moving on.

Super Size Me: I finally caught this on Showtime this morning. I think it's a must see for every man, women and child. I think its important that parents with kids watch this. I don't believe that knowing what you are putting in your body is a political issue and I hate those who tried to make this documentary out to be an anti-corporate propaganda machine.

It was nothing of the sort, it's a health documentary and the fact is that a lot of junk food is bad. I know this, everyone knows this. But it needed to be presented in a way that will make everyone look twice. The food industry has a lot of control over this country, far more than most people think.

It was so well done (I actually think it was better than Bowling for Columbine, which I thought was very good) that I'm really eager to see Morgan Spurlock's new project called 30 Days. It's coming on in June on FX and is described as [IMDB]:

An unscripted, documentary-style program where an individual is inserted into a lifestyle that is completely different from his or her upbringing, beliefs, religion or profession for 30 days.

Sounds interesting. Spurlock, an NYU Film school graduate, appears to be one of the better filmmakers on the horizon.

Huffington Post: This super-blog debuted today and it's kind of...too much. I really don't think people who are trying to compete with the Drudge Report get the certain aspect that makes his site successful.

It's simple.

Sure his Drudge "exclusives" are maybe 30% accurate but the site is fairly easy to navigate whether he's full of shit or not. Not too much to scroll down. It's much like the AP Wire I read at work. Recent news at the top, pretty much everything I want to see is on the first page. I'm done.

The Huffington Post and SPLOID! are both noble efforts but the front page is too much. In Huffington's case, the front page just goes everywhere. It's like a newspaper on crack. Hidden in there is a very nice piece from John Cusack or Hunter S. Thompson [link] and a Vanity Fair piece on disgraced former phony White House press corresspondent/gay escort Jeff Gannon/Guckert [link]. SPLOID! is just too deep. It scrolls down several pages. They need to use a right-side link package to older news.

Either way I'll link both soon, I need to add several links to the blogroll.

Liveblogging The Huffington Post [Defamer]
The Huffington Post: Famous People, Open Mouths [Gawker]