Thursday, January 31, 2008

"We saw quite a few "Hispanics"

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I found the quote from the lady below when I was doing some research on Dillon, South Carolina. Barack Obama has been referencing their school system as a prime example of our broken school systems. Dillon has some of the worse public schools in the country. I did some research on Dillon because I assumed if they have lousy schools they must have cheap land, and they do, and with very good reason. I could never live in the south or on the east coast anyway, they have no real mountains and weak beaches. The bottom line is clearly people in the south think a little bit (or a lot) differently than most of us on the west coast.

Below is a quote from one of Dillon's former locals, a graduate of Dillon High, who was visiting Dillon recently.

”We did notice several sushi restaurants (not our favorite) and Mexican restaurants. Spending summers with my grandmother in Dillon, I never saw Hispanics. While there this time, we saw quite a few, so I imagine the restaurants are very good. We have excellent Mexican restaurants in Delaware for the same reason. The last time we ate at Shoney's for breakfast, it was not very good, so I tend to stay away from places like that. On our way down, we stopped at Ryan's in Lumberton and it was excellent.”

No wonder the food in L.A. is so good. It's because we don't have any Shoney's.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

REGIFTING-There's Nothing Cheap About Saving The World


Regifting is a blood sport in Hollywood. Here actor Vincent Kartheiser from the hit show "Mad Men" has just received a regifted Nintendo controller. Look how excited he is!

I’VE ALWAYS WANTED to do two things with my life. Save money and save the world. But I have never been able to figure out a way to combine the two. It has always been one or the other. For instance I recently flew to Alaska to help clean little baby seals who were hurt in an oil spill, the downside was I ended up spending over 2,000 dollars on travel, soap and rubber gloves. (If I had been smart I would have stopped up at the 99 cent store before going to Alaska, everything and I mean everything, even the Taco Bell value menu is more expensive in Alaska.) So I felt good about helping the world because the seals were clean and healthy but I had wasted over 2 grand and I still have oil under my finger nails. Later on I was cleaning my finger nails with a nail file given to me by my friend who was one of the stars of the Broadway musical, “Hairspray”. Orginally he had been given the finger nail file from one of the producers of his play. Then it occurred to me as I was cleaning the oil out my toenails, it’s been right here in front of me for years, REGIFTING. Here in Hollywood Regifting, especially during the holidays, is a sport.

When you regift your not only saving money but your also helping to save the environment and when you save the environment, your saving the world. For instance. When you regift a DVD player, that’s one less 4 pound piece of manufactured plastic and 2 pounds less of fluorocarbons released to the atmosphere. Also that is four hours less an indentured Chinese factory worker has to spend gluing buttons on to another dvd player. So your not just saving the environment but also humanity. It’s also a really great way to justify being a cheap bastard. The next time someone accuses you of being cheap and regifting you can look them straight in the eye and ask them, “Oh and what have you done to save the world lately?”


Regifting can be tricky. Not all of your friends will appreciate that your trying to save the world. Here Vincent Kartheiser is regifting back to nature, a regifted 12 year old Nintendo controller, apparently it wasn't compatible with his WII.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Blu-ray vs. HD DVD- 2 More WAYS TO WASTE Your Money


Which one of these formats will you use tonight?

Blu-ray vs. HD DVD
This week Blu-ray outpaces HD DVD by more than 6-to-1 last week.

PEOPLE COME UP To me all the time and say “Hey you, get away from my car!” then when they find out I’m from Hollywood they invariably ask me which is better HD DVD or Blu- ray DVD? I say I don’t know? Which do you like better, VHS or Betamax? VHS or Laserdisc? Super VHS or Super Betamax? They just keep looking at me. No reply.

Then I say what about Super VHS or Video Disc? Or 8 track vs. vinyl Records? Or what about Super 16mm or Regular 16mm? Or Super 8mm or Regular 8mm? Or MiniDisc or DAT?

By the time I get to the regular 8mm film question they revert back to their first statement and push me away from their car as they pepper spray my face.
What was the point of that rambling diatribe of dead formats? Exactly. Dead Formats.

Blu- ray and HD DVD will both eventually be a dead format. And both much sooner than later. DVD’s will also eventually be a dead format. Everything will be zapped to a box on your television or to your computer and then you watch it at your leisure. It’s already happening. What do you use more your c.d. player or your ipod? Exactly. Eventually you won’t need a player period, just a phone line and a television. The receiver/scrambler will be in the television. Also High Def now won’t be High Def in five years. They will have more lines descrambled by then, 1080p will be 2180 i.c.u. peeing., or something like that. But hey if you like new technology and just have to have it, then Blu-ray is probably the best choice. They work with PS3 and Sony basically won the war. Whoever was in charge of the corporate credit card at Sony last week at the CES convention made good use of it. They must have put tens of thousands of dollars of poker chips and strippers on the old black Amex. Sony won the war and the consumer benefited to. Blu- ray has more films to offer on DVD though the number is still very small. The Toshiba vs. Sony DVD war at the CES convention paid off for consumers because it knocked down the price of the hardware on both sides. Of course, the minimum wage is a dollar an hour in china so they probably have about 20 bucks invested in their players so eventually the price will keep coming down on the hardware.

HD DVD or Blu- ray DVD? Ok to rehash and condense what was said above. It’s simple. Neither. DVD’s and CD’s will eventually be more clutter and crap that you will have to lug out to the driveway to sell at a garage sale. Ask yourself this? Do you really want to stand around on a cold Saturday morning, explaining to the guy trying to buy your Blu- ray DVD player that you paid $400 for it and you really, really need to get 20 bucks for it or your girlfriend will laugh at you, possibly even break up with you. He of course is just going to walk away, muttering under his breath “Didn’t anybody tell those stupid kids about betamax.....”

I tried to old man, I tried to.


People forget now about the Super 8 vs. 16mm format wars of the late 60's. 21 people were either shot or lost their lives. VHS was eventually crowned the winner.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

The House of Blues Anaheim (+ Slightly Stoopid New Years 2007)

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C-Money of Slightly Stoopid, green room (literally) H.O.B Anaheim, the old Disneyland Hotel which had Tron in the video arcade is directly behind him but he didn't know that at the time.

31January2007

THE HOUSE OF BLUES Anaheim should drop the word Anaheim and just say Disneyland. But then again they might sell less tickets to a Social Distortion or Slightly Stoopid show if you tell the kids they’re going to be rocking out at Disneyland. But it is, in a horrible location. On the edge of California Disney. Basically its in the middle of a giant parking lot in the middle of another giant parking lot in the middle of the side of Disneyland. Orange/Anaheim is probably the most corporate staid place in Southern California. In the summer you can actually feel the air not moving. The people who don’t believe in global warming should live in Orange for three summers in a row before they decide the world isn’t getting hotter. Ugh, what a horrible place to put a venue and an amusement park. Just think if the city fathers of Burbank had sold Walt Disney the property he really wanted for Disneyland, Disneyland would be back in Burbank off the 134. Disney actually thought it was a Zionist conspiracy ( read Walt Disney Hollywood’s Dark Prince by Marc Eliot, 1993) that he wasn’t sold the property for Disneyland because a couple years later the same people approved the sale of property and building of Universal Studios. Point of that being Disneyland would be in a cooler, more elevated area and their probably wouldn’t even have been another House of Blues in Anaheim or anything else for that matter.
Fortunately New Years Eve ’07 was my first time at the House of Blues Anaheim, everyone on the staff was very nice, I was supposed to go there a couple weeks earlier to see Pepper play but when my friend told me Pepper was covering a Journey song I made up an excuse not to go, Now that I’m getting older, I can tolerate many things, I can even tolerate the Grateful Dead now in small doses but I draw the line at men who sound like girls when they sing. What I really hate more are those gay ass baseball jersey shirts with those stupid bugs on them. No offense to people with gay asses.
The House of Blues is a good safe clean venue which is exactly what it is supposed to be. almost to safe. If John Belushi came back he would get kicked out of that place in about ten minutes. They should build another California adventure theme park, do an old school one from the cracked out Hollywood of the 80’s or New Orleans in the 70’s. Talk about keeping it real. Anyway in the real corporate rock world of house of blues Anaheim we had to explain to one of the door guys the concept of giving away extra tickets to people in line who weren’t going to be able to buy tickets. He’s gonna be a great cop. Which pretty much sums it up the House of Blues is a safe place for kids and cops. (Also if I forgot to mention it the food at H.O.B. Anaheim is quite good and reasonably priced which is rare at Disneyland. Remember the old days when you would hear your Dad bitching about the lousy, over priced battered chicken at the Carnation restaurant?)

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That haze in the air is the ghost of Roy Disney, Walt's less rascist and less praised brother.
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This isn't a photoshop effect Kyle really looks like that. This is the cool special effects lighting you can come to expect from the same company who designed the "It's A Small World" ride.