How to fill time on the news

From WSJ.com's Best of the Web:

• Many Hollywood Celebrities Rally Behind Obama (Reuters)
• Actors' Strike Could Hurt Mass. Movie Biz (Boston Herald)
• PETA Slams Jessica Simpson for 'Real Girls Eat Meat' T-Shirt (FoxNews.com)
• Menus With Fancy Font Can Mean Fancy Prices: Study (Reuters)
• Locked Door Thwarts Robber (Mobile Press-Register)

Recently flagged as "Obvious" by readers of FARK.com

• Guests get fed up as hotels' miscellaneous fees pile up (Freep.com)
• California summer starts with blast — of heat (msnbc.com)
• TV Batman Adam West not excited for The Dark Knight (Coventry Telegraph)
• Doctor: Flip-flops lack support (WTHR 13 Indianapolis)

I'll take "The Flippin' Obvious" for $100, Alex...

The consummate professional

What does it mean to be a professional actor?

It means that you give it everything you've got, even when you're giving it to a felt-tip pen.



Can you imagine any other actor (that is, any other actor who didn't really need the money) throwing himself into this with such gusto?

The gayness of Charles Nelson Reilly was perhaps the worst-kept secret in Hollywood. He was told it would keep him from getting work. Some weeks you could spin the dial and Reilly was on every channel at the same time. Thank God he was gay, or it would have been All Charles Nelson Reilly, All The Time.

(Saw the clip at Mark Evanier's News From Me.)

Degrees of unhappiness

In the news business, and especially in the newspaper business, each season brings a collection of evergreen story topics. January sees polar-bear swims and Martin Luther King day. In February, it's valentines and groundhogs. And so on.

We seem to be seeing a new summertime theme: College graduates utterly unprepared for the Real World, astounded that their sparkling new degrees, acquired through undeniable hard work and at appalling expense, have not translated into fulfilling yet lucrative positions.

Chronic financial instability weighs on philosophy major
[Scranton Times Tribune]
“I’ve been working since I was 15 and I still have nothing,” said Ms. Pollack, 28. “It seems like that’s always the situation, even when I have a job. I have no money because I’m giving it to everybody else.”

A student of philosophy, she is frustrated by the domineering hold the greenback has, but resigned to the task at hand — to find a way to make a livable income and one day rise above the stacks of bills to enjoy an existence free from worry over the smallest everyday expenses.

I've commented on this phenomenon before, of course. Instead of making fun of this newest example (I really don't have the heart), I'll just say what I've said before:

The blame lies with the student herself, and with her advisors. My own journalism school advisor told me that my intended minor subject (art) would not help me find a job, and all but made me change it to political science, a subject I hated then and hate now. (I didn't really want to be a reporter: I wanted to work in production. I wanted to make the newspaper look better.)

I would suggest that philosophy advisors, distateful as it may be (not to mention running counter to your self-interest), ask your students how they expect to make money with a degree in philosophy. You can't make 'em act on it, but you can at least put the question in their heads. They trust you, and they don't deserve to be rudely surprised the day after commencement.

Sometimes it's too easy

In Corio, Victoria AU, a man texted a video of himself masturbating to a woman while she was at the police station in the process of filing a complaint against him.

I know, "stupid criminal" stories are all too common, and often untrue, but this one is so far over the top I had to pass it along. In addition, it appealed to me because it's a form of self-incrimination that wasn't possible, say, five years ago.

Not what you're picturing

closet girl 01 Originally uploaded by eley88

I thought of this image when I saw this story. I mean, any healthy red-blooded man who thinks about finding a Japanese woman in his closet is naturally going to think of a woman who looks like this. "Please don't turn me in," she'll say breathily, as if this is The X-Rated Diary of Anne Frank. "I'll do anything..."

Japan man discovers woman living in his closet
[Reuters / Yahoo]
A Japanese man who was mystified when food kept disappearing from his kitchen, set up a hidden camera and found an unknown woman living secretly in his closet, Japanese media said Friday.

The 57-year-old unemployed man of Fukuoka in southern Japan called police Wednesday when the camera sent pictures to his mobile phone of an intruder in his home while he was out on Wednesday, the Asahi newspaper said on its Website.

Officers rushed to the house and found a 58-year-old unemployed woman hiding in an unused closet, where she had secreted a mattress and plastic drink bottles, the Asahi said. Police suspect she may have been there for several months, the paper said.

An unused closet? What kind of home has one of those?

(I hope she won't mind me using her picture this way...)

What else is she qualified to do?

A monthly talk show.

The young Austrian lady who managed to escape from the windowless basement cell in which she'd been imprisoned for eight years since her abduction at age 10...will premiere on Vienna's Puls4 Sunday night.

I can't decide if this is a triumph of the can-do human spirit or an obscene exploitation of fame.

Young woman held in underground cell gets talk show
[AP / Cnews]

VIENNA, Austria - Television was once her only window on the world. Now Natascha Kampusch - still adjusting to life after spending 8 1/2 years in an underground cell - is starting an improbable new career as a TV talk show host.

Less than two years after staging a dramatic escape while her captor was distracted with a phone call, the young Austrian woman whose ordeal stunned people worldwide is going prime time.

"Natascha Kampusch Meets ...," a chat show featuring local celebrities, debuts Sunday evening on Puls4, a new private cable channel.

A Puls4 trailer shows Kampusch typing on a laptop computer, pouring herself a glass of mineral water and grinning as makeup artists give her a final touchup on the set. She wears her long blond hair down and sports a sweater and a floral-patterned skirt - both in purple, her favorite color.

They're in my other pants

The Book of Biff is chock full of good advice.

You think you're fed up?

You haven't been fed up until you're fed up on live television.

Is This an Ex-Candidate?

Okay, how many ways are there to say "the Clinton campaign is dead" with Monty Python jokes?

Dana Milbank at the Washington Post likes the "dead parrot" sketch.

Customer: "That parrot is definitely deceased, and when I purchased it not half an hour ago, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due to it being tired and shagged out following a prolonged squawk."

Pet-shop owner: "Well, he's, he's, ah, probably pining for the fiords."

He can't spell fjords, but that's okay, who can? And who can resist describing the Clinton campaign as a "prolonged squawk"? (I really like the caption for the accompanying picture of the candidate boarding a plane: "Hillary Clinton, pining for the Rose Garden.")

But as you can see from the cartoon, there are other possibilities. But then you probably read Fark, too.

"But I'm not dead yet!"
"Yes you are. You'll be stone cold dead in a moment."

What I can't figure is why we didn't see this prolonged deathmatch coming. The Democrats are a party of loosely-allied minorities, and here we have two of them set at each other's throats. This could not possibly end well.

"You're black. Republicans will never vote for you."
"You're a woman. Republicans will never vote for you."
"You're too young."
"You're a Clinton."
"I've had the superdelegates locked up from day one."
"Only because they're afraid of your husband."
"Everyone thinks you're a closet Muslim."
"Everyone thinks I'm Tiger Woods."
"Nobody really knows you."
"Everybody knows you, and nobody likes you."

The first candidate to eat a wafer-thin mint will explode. All over the nightly news.

Stuff I Almost Bought

From: T-Shirt Hell

Why not: Well, it's eighteen dollars! That's an awful lot to spend on a tee shirt, especially for a running joke that is about to outrun its sell-by date.

On the other hand, who expected this race to still be undecided by now?

EXTRA: Last week's thing I almost bought:

From: Dirt Cheap Shirt

Why not: Cost wasn't the issue, since it was one of their one-day specials for $1 (plus shipping). Partly it was the fact that it is, after all, a white tee shirt, and people built like me look like slobs wearing white tees. Mostly, though, it's because it's only funny once a year, and it probably wouldn't have arrived by May 5.

But I admit I did laugh out loud when I saw it.

Doctor...tell me, is he...?

glumbert - He's Dead Jim

All right already

Call it a palate cleanser, I guess.

The same generation again

Again, from Balls and Walnuts. I meant to run it last Thursday, but preparations for an out-of-town trip distracted me...

The challenge is gonna be convincing Kari to wear 'em

Theme week, day 3: Do girls fart?

Captain on the bridge

It's good to be the captain.

(Found it at Balls and Walnuts.)

Smells like theme week

Can't think of anything more appropriate to our National Day of Mourning, April 15.

Hey, wait a minute

I knew something was wrong with yesterday's clip. I thought Costello was the short one.

I was actually hoping to find the Harry Shearer bit about the concert featuring (I believe) the Who, the Guess Who, Yes, and the Band.

All right, no fooling, I really mean it, this time for sure. From the film "The Gay Nineties" (hey, this bit probably is that old), Abbott and Costello's pick for the definitive performance of "Who's on First".

Sure, here you go

Yesterday's video looks wrong, too. The style is too archaic. Here's a somewhat more modern version of Abbott and Costello's classic "Who's on First">

Say, mister, you got two tens for a five?

Sorry, yesterday's recording doesn't seem to be complete. Here, again, is Abbott and Costello's classic "Who's on First", all the way to the shortstop joke...

I don't believe anything I see in the papers today

So rather than risk it, in honor of the first week of baseball season, enjoy Abbott and Costello's classic "Who's on First".