Yahoo! News - Oil Surges $2 on ‘Super-Spike’ Prediction

Alright…two things to annoy me today…SWEET! According to this article, “experts” (I always love how people are called experts with no notice of WHY they are experts) predict that due to rising demand, crude oil could hit $100 a barrel.

Folks, we are at $56 a barrel now, and the average national price for a gallon of gas is hovering at around $2.13. So, almost double that price and we are looking at $4.00 a gallon. I don’t know about you, but perhaps we should be pouring as much money as possible now into forms of alternative fuel?

There is current research into hydrogen cell cars, but they say we are at least 15 years away from them being mass produced. That is a WHOLE lot of miles still driven on fossil fuels.

This country has made several mistakes in its history, one of the biggest being a mixture of allowing unchecked urban sprawl in addition to a lack of planning for mass transit systems.

ICv2 News - Viz Covers Up ‘I’’s’

This irks me to no end. It looks like American’s can’t handle nipples. So when Viz Publishing brought over the series “I’s” from Japan, they decided they had to place stars over the nipples in the book.

Why is it just about anywhere else in the world people can handle the sight of nipples, but yet America, the supposed “leader” of the world can’t handle this? What is it about something so simple as a portion of a womans anatomy, and something men have also, makes people run screaming into the night?

Gotta love how prudish we are somedays.

I’m getting rather tired of sterotypes. Apparently if I listen to Broadway showtunes I must be unmanly. Wow…really? If you would care to open my CD cabinet you will find everything from traditional celtic to death metal. So if I choose to listen to the occasional Broadyway musical, you know what…bite me. I’m going to listen to it. (And as I write this I am listening to Rent, so stick that in your pipe and smoke it)

So what am I trying to say? Sterotypes are outdated in this day and age. If I want to listen to music and eat foods that others consider “unmanly”, you know what, I really don’t give a flying frick. (and my unmanly food I love is quiche….I love eggs…I love pies…why should I not love quiche?)

You know, the other day I had someone post a comment on my LiveJournal. (you really don’t need to go there, I make the same exact posts here and over there) “Yay!” I thought, I always enjoy getting feedback. Wow…no longer.

I have deleted the comment, and I didn’t keep a copy of it, but essentially it boiled down to some 16 year old kid was sure he had me all figured out from my journal. I was obviouslly wasting my brain away because all I write about is television (apparently he only read the first page of the journal) and just went on to say what a waste it was and I should go and write or role-play to expand my mind. Um…dude…what do you call the entries in a journal?

Folks…don’t ever think you have someone “figured out” just because you read their blog. This is such a tiny portion of who I am. I like to point out stupidity when I see it. Where do you find a lot of stupidity? On tv! So I write alot about tv, don’t like it, don’t read my blog! I think its a fairly simple solution personally.

I would love to write about other things, but as I have said many times before, I can’t for fear of alienating customers of my companies. I would love to write about politics, abortion, Terry Schiavo, gun control, gay marriage, the goverment….any number of things, but I simply can’t. So I choose safe, middle of the road subjects. Don’t like it? Don’t come here! But NEVER assume you “know” who I am, because I can gaurentee you that you don’t even have an inkling of the whole picture.

I have been trying to catch up on some DVD watching lately….why does Hollywood hate us? Do they really think we are not worthy of their time and effort?

Nothing really to say. Nothing happened today, nothing to rant about except being cold *shrug*

Keys go jingle jingle

I have no heat
I couldn’t find anyone to bring propane
I have a headache
I hate each and everyone of you

Challange time was interesting this week. The teams were to put together an instructional demonstration for The Home Depot of something customers could build. Ok…not being handy myself, I could see where this would be a problem for some of the team members, but was it fascinating to see how it effected each team.

Net Worth - All the team members were gung-ho except for Erin, who was upfront from the get go that she had no clue how to do things like this. There was plenty of other things she could have done, but she seemed to think her lack of tool knowledge just excused her from the whole thing. The rest of the team was jazzed though about their project which was a movable Kitchen shelving unit.

Manga Corp - Craig was project manager, and while he was enthusastic, he seemed to have no easy way of communicating his thoughts to the rest of his team. And none of them were excited about his choice for the demonstration which was just a simple storage box.

So when it came to demonstration time, how did the teams do? Well Net Worth bungled everything about their demonstration. Assembled it incorrectly, didn’t involve the audience and took to long to do it.

Manga on the other hand, who were not hyped about their box project, got into it when they saw how excited the kids got about it. They wanted to be involved and do it with their parents. This in turn jazzed the team, and they performed much better in the actual crunch time.

Winners….Manga Corp. Even though the team was not excited at first, they had to admit Craid stayed true to his vision and it paid off. And HUGE kudos to Kendra for even saying the only person on the team who deserved the reward was Craig. Wow…a player who admits they screwed up. Good for you!

In the boardroom it was refreshing to see George and Carolyn bluntly told Trump that Angie, the project manager for Net Worth, did not deserve to be fired even though she made some poor choices. Wowzers…go lackeys!

So in the end, Trump bluntly told Angie her butt had been saved by the lackeys and it was down to the two she had brought back in with her…Erin, the slacker and Chris the hot-headed tobacco chewer. How do we know this about Chris? Well his team constantly reminds you he is a hot-head and Trump freaking obsesses constantly over the chewing. GET OVER IT TRUMP! Yes, it is disgusting, but there is more going on here. Like all your personal habits are wonderfil *coughhaircough*

In the end, Erin and her slacking ways went…no big loss…adios!

Oh, and on a side note, the Home Depot they went into at the end to announce the winner is on 23rd street in New York City. It used to be the building that housed Hasbro Toys NYC offices and Toy Fair showroom…..that hurt to watch. I loved that building, and have some really fond memories of that building. Oh well…time moves on.

Wow….Ulong won reward challange! Yay…go Ulong! Oh wait a minute…it was only reward. Silly me.

So off we go to immunity challange….oh Koror won that one….what a shocker! At least this time Ulong got rid of James.

There really is nothing else to say. This losing streak of Ulong’s is just depressing.

computer problems tonight…full post tomorrow

I have got to stop waiting until so late in the day to write my entries because this is what causes these stupid, little short entries. I want to hold to my at-least-one-a-day rule, but I am also getting annoyed with how short some of my enteries have been lately.

And also, there has been so much in the media I would love to talk about, but don’t because I like to remain neutral. *le sigh* I am going to have to figure out a compromise of some kind.

YouSendIt | Email large files quickly, securely, and easily!

I am not sure how I missed out knowing about this site until recently. Some friends and I needed to transfer a bunch of video files to each other, and none of us wanted to kill our websites bandwidth limits.

Enter YouSendIt.com

100% free, easy to use….loving it! So if you need to transfer some files, give it a try!

Yahoo! News - Boondocks

I don’t always agree with Boondocks, but their humor about Wal-Mart lately sure has me chuckling.

Yahoo! News - Self-Service Hotel Check-In to Increase

This is either going to be the greatest thing to ever happen to business or travel OR the biggest headache ever. I will reserve judgement until I get to use it once for myself, but I do have some fears of the headaches.

Yahoo! News - Toys R Us Agrees to Buyout Deal

I covered the toy industry for several years as a magazine journalist, so this news fascinates me. In paticular though, this part:

“This is a day that toy manufacturers will be cheering. The last couple years have been bad news for the toy business,” said Jim Silver, publisher of Toy Book and other industry magazines. “This will really make a lot of people very happy.”

Folks..Toys R’ Us was bought by a combination of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., Bain Capital and Vornado Realty Trust…Kohlberg, Kravis Roberts & Co are famous for being corporate RAIDERS…not saviors…RAIDERS.

You can not honestly believe they are going to leave TRU in it’s current shape. My bet…they want the land. TRU’s sit on traditonally pretty choice pieces of real-estate. Word is already circulating that at least 200 of the stores will probably be bulldozed. I mean, I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that a realty company was on the three companies involved in the buyout.

This doesn’t help the toy industry…that just solidfies Wal-Mart’s hold on their 30% share of the industry, which will now just continue to grow. Add this into the almost complete collapse of FAO Schwarz, the chapter 11 Bankruptcy of KB Toys, Wal-Mart will just continue to get bigger and bigger.

This is NOT good for the toy industry folks, not good at all.

I hate recap episodes…what a waste of a week! Yes, we got to see extra clips of the Apprentice’s being cry babys…NOTHING NEW THERE! Oh well….guess nothing to really say until next week.

Mark Burnett is an amazing, amazing bastard! Both teams go to tribal council, only one gets food and the losers have to watch the winners eat? OUCH!

The challange was pretty tame…go out on a raft, dive in, bring up a Sake bottle, first team to 6 wins. Not a huge deal. Unless your name is Ibrehem that is. He went down three times and was never able to get a bottle….*slaps forehead*. So again, Ulong falls behind. They almost caught up when Ian from Koror couldn’t spot the bottle.

So off to tribal council both tribes march. Koror first where they vote off Willard. Not a big surprise, he couldn’t contribute much. Then Koror moved over to the jury side, had stew and biscuits and watched Ulong have their tribal council.

Low and behold though, Mark Burnett stikes again! Before Ulong can vote, they are told Koror will get to give one member of Ulong immunity. So who do you think they choose? Why Ibrehem of course….d’oh! Talk about a way to screw over the other tribe.

So with only 4 tribe members up for vote they end up in a tie between Bobby Jon and Angie. I thought for sure Bobby Jon would go, but for what ever reason Stephanie voted for Angie in the second round. WHY??????????

Oh well…it’s not like I really expect to see any of Ulong there at the end of the game anyway.

I am *SO* stoked Rent is finally being made into a movie! Even better, they got the majority of the original Broadway cast to come back for it!

I was lucky enough to see it in early 1997 when the original cast was still performing. I have lost count of how many times I have listened to the original soundtrack.

The film will do one of two things though, it will either A)Be a mindblowing experiance or B)It will destroy the fabric of this play. The big problem is that the original play was done on a very shostring budget and the props are minimal. A pay phone, a trash can, a couple of folding lunch room tables…very simplistic. The band actually was on stage hidden under a “second story” room. This is going to be awfully hard to convey onto the screen without losing it’s rawness.

And yes boys and girls, this show can prove that even big burly men can appreciate show tunes.

Entertainment News Article | Reuters.co.uk

I have been watching ER since episode 1 and haven’t missed a one of them. So that being said…just let it die. It was good, but it jumped the shark a LONG time ago.

This season has been especially lackluster with only a few pearls tossed in. (The Cynthia Nixon episode and the recent episode with the letters back and forth to Iraq.) So instead of extending just for the sake of extending it….let it die a graceful death.

And if Noah Wyle is really leaving at the end of the season, which is up in the air at the moment, what better is there to end it than with the departure of the character that started the series?

Sometimes you just have to know its time to cut and run. Sadly the ER folks didn’t.

Been a long weekend folks, but here I am finally with my weekly whining about The Apprentice.

So it’s time for the corparate reshuffling to make the Book Smarts and the Street Smarts work together. Several changes were made, but as each is booted, I will tell you which side they were originally on.

This week each team was sent out to talk to an assortmant of famous rockers such as Barenaked Ladies, Lil Kim, Little John, Moby and so on and get them to donate items for a charity auction on FUSE TV for the Elisabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. Each team talked to different musicians and the prizes got to be pretty wild. (A week on tour with Moby for example) In the end Manga Corp (the former all book smarts team) won with a total of $21,654 to Net Worth’s (the former all street smarts team) total of $11,325. Happily all of it went to an excellent cause.

So what caused the loss? That’s easy, one word, John. Formerly of Street Smarts he had one concern, and one concern only, in the meeting of the celebrities and gabbing with them. He was rude, ballsy and all around unproffesional.

When it came town for the boardroom I did get concerned that Chris, the project leader, was going to go in usual style because he kept insisting on raising his voice to Trump and his cronies. Never wise. In the end though the right person went.

Adios John….he truly were a worthless lump.