i m N s h o

I've got a degree in Theater from UCI . Currently, I'm a website producer for a Fortune 500 company. In the past I've waited tables (how cliché), been a restaurant manager (decidedly NOT cliché… and soul-crushing) and held numerous other odd jobs (some more odd than others). I usually joke that my degree in theater means that I can act like I know what I'm doing in any situation. Sadly, this has been more true than I may have wished, and I've certainly bluffed my way through more than a few of those odd jobs on the pretense that I knew what I was doing. Until this year, it's been ages since I've done any acting. It's been so long that my wife, who's done her share of acting and directing, had never seen me act. But I've talked a lot about getting back into it, especially in the past few years. So, when a friend of mine asked me if I'd like to do a scene for her in the Shakespeare Festival at the Huntington Library this year, I jumped at the ...

Bush claims oversight exemption too Beyond "no surprise" I've really got nothing more to say about that. Arrogant pricks. (OK, so maybe ONE more thing.)  

Everybody knows that Dick Cheney is an arrogant prick. Some may admire that arrogance, attributing it to the "courage of his convictions" or other such BS, but I presume those are people that, for the most part, agree with Cheney's actions. I just see an arrogant motherfucker, solely focused on his own agenda and damn the Constitution or consequences. But seriously, this truly may be the height of arrogance: Cheney Power Grab: Says White House Rules Don't Apply to Him —Justin Rood; ABC News I love the comments in Rood's blog (linked from the above article). As at least one of those posts mention, if he's not part of the freaking Executive Branch, then what part of the government does he think he's working for? (And how does he explain the President extending his Executive Privilege to include the VP back at the beginning of his term in office, if he's not part of the Exec? Not that that would explain how the VP qualifies for executive privilege in the ...

Seriously? When I first heard the phrase "Certified Pre-Owned" a few years ago, I thought it was an unbearably pretentious way of referring to used cars, an example of euphemisms gone awry. It didn't help that it was always used when talking about Mercedes, BMW, Lexus… cars that, apparently, can't be sold "used". After a while I've come to accept that the phrase does have some value, in that the "certified pre-owned" car, presumably, undergoes screening and servicing and repairs prior to being offered for sale. It also, I assume, stems from the increase in the number of leased vehicles being returned to dealers for sale to their clientèle. If my experience of leasing is at all indicative, the car I returned to the dealer was in nearly pristine condition, compared to the car I now own, which I couldn't wait to make "my own"—swapping out the car stereo, adding an amplifier, etc. But Volkswagen is running an ad campaign on KROQ this ...

I'm as willing to argue that Paris Hilton is a spoiled little rich girl, desperately in need of a reality check, as the next person. But this is seriously starting to smack of piling on: Hilton Transported To Twin Towers Jail And, if that weren't enough, the fact that the Sheriff's Dept. is calling a press conference to address "the Paris situation" is bordering on the absurd. Seriously, isn't there ANYTHING more important going on in the world right now? We are still warring in Iraq, right? And wasn't there something about our President and the Russian President facing off over weapons in Europe or the Middle East? I don't really know, since the news was too freaking busy with the Paris Hilton travails.  

I obviously haven't seen it yet, but you've gotta love a reveiw quote like this one: I know full well I'm expected to Suspend My Disbelief. Unfortunately, my disbelief is very heavy, and during "Ocean's Thirteen," the suspension cable snapped. RogerEbert.com Maybe I'm not going to rush out and catch this one this weekend after all.  

So this little tidbit hit the news yesterday: Court Rebuffs F.C.C. on Fines for Indecency I, for one, couldn't be happier to see it. The FCC, egged on by the Bush Administration, "concerned" members of Congress and the narrow-minded a-holes from the Parents Television Council and other morality watchdog groups, has been on a tear in recent years, attempting to "make TV safe for children" or some such BS. It's a battle that's been raging for decades, but between idiot stunts like the infamous Janet Jackson nipple-baring Superbowl, the power of Internet "activism" (can it really be activism when it takes less than 30 seconds of your time, comfortably seated in front of your PC, to participate?) and the increasingly judgmental mindset that's apparently prevailing in this country, it's gotten much worse in the past few years. So I'm very glad to see the courts start smacking them down over this. We'll most likely have to see how thi...

So here it is, the first week of June and the summer movie season has kicked off with a vengeance… Spiderman 3, Shrek 3, Pirates 3 (I'm detecting a theme here) and Knocked Up have all come pounding into the theatres the past month and made a lot of noise about opening weekend grosses and records set and broken… blah, blah, blah. What I find most interesting here is how freaking long most of these movies are! (Shrek actually clocks in at a very reasonable 93 minutes, so it's off the hook for this discussion.) Let me first say that I'm the last person to complain about a movie being too long just because of the number of minutes it runs. As far as I'm concerned, it's not how long the movie runs, it's how long it FEELS like it runs. I've watched 3 hour films that have flown by, and endured 90 minute movies that couldn't end fast enough. (I have plans, one of these days, to sit down and watch The Lord of The Rings in it's entirety—and yes, that's the...