MediBlog - In a nutshell...

It's Tuesday nite, about 11:20. Today I met with a liver surgeon - I have two to three cancerous tumors on my liver and a suspicious spot on my lung.

Tomorrow they take me in and work on the liver. It should just be an overnite stay.

After a couple, three weeks to recover, they'll take me back in to biopsy the place on my lung.

Needless to say, blogging will be sporadic over the next few days but will try to update this weekend. Also, we had planned a vacation in New York City for next week and I'm hoping to be strong enough to do it. I need it, and so do the fam.

Happy Birthday

Carrie Ann Moss!

I had no idea...

I had given up reading the Sunday comics because they had gotten singularly vapid and just not funny. But apparently, there's been some exciting developments in a couple of the classic strips that has the internet tubes all a flutter.

Of course I'm talking about Mary Worth's stalker: Aldo Kelrast...

OK, we admit it.

We haven't read Mary Worth in 30 years, either. UNTIL NOW.

Mary's got a stalker!

He looks like Captain Kangaroo. And he's the talk of the comics world.

Mary Worth, the comic strip your grandma used to love, suddenly is red-hot.

Is it because an extreme makeover took away her wrinkles and the junk in her trunk, turning a frumpy widow into a saucy senior? Or is it the holy-cow story line, which has her being hounded by a Captain Kangaroo look-alike who may have offed his wife?

Whatever the case, Mary Worth, a strip about the original desperate housewife, is on fire. Thousands of people have taken to the Internet to analyze and debate her every move — something unheard of for a comic from the dinosaur age.

Source

The Comics Curmudgeon is the go-to source for all things Mary and Aldo and comics in general. You won't be disappointed...



"You're mine, Mary, MINE!!!! BWAA-HAA-HAAAAAAAA!"

Miami Mice

Time to admit the truth that my MONSTER prediction for Miami Vice was wrong, wrong, wrong. The darn thing isn't even in the top ten anymore. This puts me at 1 in 5...

Chocolate Worshippers

Workers at Angiano's gourmet chocolate company, Bodega Chocolates, discovered under a vat a 2-inch-tall column of chocolate drippings that they believe bears a striking resemblance to the Virgin Mary.

Since the discovery Monday, Angiano's employees have spent much of their time hovering over the tiny figure, praying and placing rose petals and candles around it.

Source

Or, it's a bird...

Naturally Rude

RIVERTON, Utah (AP) -- A vent cover on the side of a house looks like it might be a rude hand gesture. Then again, it might be a cactus, abstract art-style. It depends if you're the owner or a neighbor.

"This kind of shows the attitude that we've been dealing with all along," said neighbor Stan Torgersen, who sees it as a hand giving the finger, visible from all his back windows.

The acrimony began last fall, when Darren Wood's hill lot was excavated. Torgersen was worried that the excavation might damage his foundation, so he and another neighbor asked the city to intervene.

Riverton officials ordered a soil test, something Wood said had been done by the previous owner. A new exam, [Wood] said, would delay the project by four months and cost him $3,000.

More recently, the Torgersens and another neighbor complained to the city that the home exceeded the height allowed by code. "We used to have a view of the mountains," Janet Torgersen told The Salt Lake Tribune. "He didn't have to take everyone's view."

Wood conceded the house might be over the limit by a little more than a foot. But once the house is finished, and the soil and landscaping laid out, he believes it will be within regulations.

Plus, he added, the city approved the house plan.

"I think the bottom line is harassment," Wood said of his neighbors' grievances. "They will find another issue to complain about."

Source

People in California can't tell the difference between the Virgin Mary and a bird, people in Utah can't tell the difference between a cactus and a bird.

Uh, oh...

I haven’t had this much fun watching a movie since Ash Williams stood with a shotgun in one hand and a chainsaw in the other, beckoning: “Gimme some sugar, baby.” Folks, Snakes on a Plane is every bit of god-awful fantastic that the hype portends. And I say this not as a movie critic, but as an enthusiast of so-bad-it’s-good.

I consider the Final Destination series one of my favorite trilogies of all time; The Skulls is a minor classic, and nary anything can compare to the joy that was Cool as Ice. But Snakes on a Plane beats them all, hands down, fists balled, and middle finger to the sky. It absolutely kills.

Source

Man, am I really looking at 1 in 6?

In the news...

CHINA BANS FOREIGN CARTOONS - Beginning Sept. 1, regulators will bar foreign cartoons from TV from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. in an effort to protect China's struggling animation studios, news reports said Sunday. The move allows the Monkey King and his Chinese pals to get the top TV viewing hours to themselves...



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STARGATE SG1 BROADCASTS 200th EPISODE TONIGHT - with a self-parodying, post-modern, deconstructed episode in which the meta-version of the show itself is once again referenced in the show within a show Wormhole Xtreme which in this case is trying to do a feature film of itself. Hilarity ensues...

(And it don't hurt if you bring back Richard Dean Anderson for a guest slot.)



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CBS TO OFFER FREE DOWNLOADS OF PRIMETIME SHOWS - Seven series will be offered for "next-day" download including the CSI franchises and Survivor - and yes they will be free. Downloads will be available through the CBS site innertube...



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BONO PLACES A NOTE IN BILLBOARD FOR TONY BENNETT

Tony,

Trying to sing with you was a humbling, if not humiliating experience. You're like A HOUSE YOU CAN'T BREAK INTO, at least not by force. You can run at the door, but the doors are locked ... you can bang on the windows ... I got into the HOUSE OF BENNETT, but only as the cat burglar ... looking to steal a place in this incredible legacy.

I've had the pleasure of singing with you, AND FOR YOU ... I broke in through the bathroom window, up a drainpipe ... I'm not leaving

Bono

"I'm not worthy!"

Friday Random Ten

Space Oddity - David Bowie

Sandstorm - Peter Gabriel

Last Orders Please - Faces

Disappointment - Cranberries

Home - Smash Mouth

I'm Too Sexy - Right Said Fred

Cantina Band - Star Wars Soundtrack

What Is and What Should Never Be - Led Zeppelin

Planet Claire - B-52's

Public Servant - U.K. Subs

Feta

Apparently, in a recent poll, Brits found these...



...(daddy long legs) scarier than these...



Even when they are on a plane...

Spike!

Spike Lee's documentary about the devastation of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina premiered Wednesday evening at the New Orleans Arena before an audience of thousands of victims of the disaster.

The four-hour documentary, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, is both a heart-rending story and as angry as anything Lee has made in his 20-year career.

Lee, maker of racially charged films such as Do the Right Thing and Malcolm X, crafts the story of Hurricane Katrina and the flooding that followed without appearing on film. Instead, he lets the people of New Orleans tell the tale of neglect and abandonment by those who should have been in charge.

Source

Spike's film will premiere on HBO in two installments: parts 1 & 2 on Monday, August 21 @ 9pm / parts 3 & 4 on Tuesday, August 22 @ 9pm. HBO will also run all four parts back to back on Tuesday, August 28, 8pm to midnight.

Say again?

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Six friends spruced up in fake blood and tattered clothing were arrested in downtown Minneapolis on suspicion of toting "simulated weapons of mass destruction."

Simulated weapons of mass destruction...?

Police said the group were allegedly carrying bags with wires sticking out, making it look like a bomb, while meandering and dancing to music as part of a "zombie dance party" Saturday night.

One group member said the "weapons" were actually backpacks modified to carry a homemade stereos and were jailed without reason. None of the six adults and one juvenile arrested have been charged.

Source

There's always one guy or gal who is just too cool to do the whole dress-up thing and they ultimately ruin it for everyone else - making us all feel stupid...

Homicide Watch

Watched Spike Lee's Inside Man this weekend - great flick! Just a rousing, suspenseful entertainment, a classic New York movie where even the smallest characters are real, firmly rooted in their New York environment. Early in the film we are treated to an appearance by Peter Gerety who played Homicide detective Stu Gharty...



And featured more prominently in Inside Man, was James Ransom - Ziggy from season 2 of HBO's The Wire.

Monster or Goat?

It's an internet phenom, a marketing juggernaught, an unabashedly silly return to the glories of the 50's B-movie. And it has Samuel Jackson. But will Snakes on a Plane rule or drool?

We've seen pretty conclusively that my predictive powers are absurdly bad, with my perfect score of 1 for 1 rapidly declining to 1 for 4. And Miami Vice is going to make it 1 for 5! So this prediction is critical.

And here it is:

Oh yeah, that Bruno Kirby...

LOS ANGELES Aug 16, 2006 (AP)— Bruno Kirby, a veteran character actor known for playing the best friend in two of Billy Crystal's biggest comedies When Harry Met Sally and City Slickers, has died. He was 57.

Kirby died Monday in Los Angeles from complications related to leukemia, his wife Lynn Sellers said in a statement Tuesday. He had been recently diagnosed with the disease.

Source

Kirby appeared in dozens of motion pictures and television programs - usually cast as the definitive New Yorker...



He appeared in my beloved Homicide: Life on the Street - as The Gas Man. Kirby also directed a fan fave episode of H:LotS - Heartbeat - in which Munch and Howard...



...go up against a murderer with an obsession with Edgar Allen Poe.

But maybe his most unforgettable role was in the Al Pacino starring, feel-good movie of 1980: Cruising...



Internet Movie Database credits Kirby as the "man greasing up his fist in a club."

(Major shout-out to TBogg...)

Kronk Konks Prop Cop

Some of you may remember Peter Berg in his turn as Dr. Billy Kronk on Chicago Hope. Berg has gone on to directing feature films...



Berg's first feature film directorial outing - Very Bad Things - concerned a bachelor party in which the hired hooker is accidentally killed in the drunken mayhem...

A crew member was killed on the set of The Kingdom, a high-profile Hollywood production starring Jamie Foxx and Jennifer Garner.

Assistant propmaster Nick Papac, 25, died on Saturday after he crashed his all-terrain vehicle on a motorway in Mesa, near Phoenix, Arizona. The road had been closed to the public to allow The Kingdom's crew to film. Shooting had ended when the accident occurred.

Papac crashed his golfcart-like vehicle into an SUV that carried the film's director, Peter Berg. Papac was airlifted to hospital, where he died a few hours later from severe head injuries. No one else was injured in the crash.

Source

Berg is seen here in this dramatic reenactment, airlifting the Assistant propmaster into the emergency room in Phoenix...

Poked, prodded, injected, inspected, imaged and scanned...

So it was a lower GI ultrasound about four weeks ago, followed by an MRI about three weeks ago - I had to do the MRI twice, the machine fouled up on the first set - and then today it was a CT Scan and a Bone Scan.

Should have all info in the next 24 to 48 hours. See the surgeon next week on Tuesday...

At long last...

Sunday, September 10 marks the return of HBO's awesome and epic Baltimore cop series, The Wire. A direct descendant of my beloved Homicide: Life on the Street, The Wire has delivered three seasons of television excellence.

Season one focused on the drug trade in the city's dreaded high-rise housing projects. Season two shifted attention to the city docks, and the working men who get caught up in the illegal smuggling trade.



Season three went back to the drug neighborhoods, as the trade moved out into the city following the demolition of the high-rises. Season four looks to go into the public schools.

While being a dense, well plotted, ensemble police procedural, The Wire charts the long and steady demise of middle class, blue collar America. It barely survived being renewed for a fourth season - we're lucky to be getting it.

Mike!

Daytime talk show king, Mike Douglas passed this weekend - he was 81. Don't know about you, but Mike's show was a fixture in my house in the 60s. Mike's easy-going, convivial personality made the show as untreatening as could be. You could expect the typical, Hollywood celebrities and personalities...



Of course, there would always be a jump in anticipation if Totie Fields were appearing...



But sprinkled in with the standard Hollywood guests were folks like Alice Cooper, seen here with Mike and Peter Falk...



As middle-America enjoyed the lively banter of celebrities, they were getting to know the icons of the counter-culture on the same, friendly level.



The rest is - as they say - history.



Rock on, Mike. Rock on...

Ouch!

Coming out of a five-day opening weekend, World Trade Center sits dejected at third place behind the NASCAR spoof Talladega Nights and bad-boy-makes-good dance flick Step Up. WTC did only $19,000,000 for the weekend, and a total of $27,000,000 for the five-day opening...

Uncle! My prediction was MONSTER. I blew it...

Sorry...

A thousand apologies for the lite posting. I've got some medical stuff taking up my free time at the moment - tests, doctors, meetings with surgeons, etc. I'll fill in the details when I have some...

Friday Random Ten

You're Not from Brighton - Fatboy Slim

Jungle Love - Steve Miller Band

Pressure Drop - The Specials

Any Other Name - American Beauty Soundtrack

Memory - Cowboy Bebop Soundtrack

Brass in Pocket - Pretenders

Salt of the Earth - Rolling Stones

Blue Suede Shoes - Carl Perkins

Sixty Years On - Elton John

Two Hearts Beat as One - U2