In The Spotlight Today: Geraldo Rivera

God bless Geraldo. He's a trooper. He's also a bandit who's staff loves to swipe stories off the Internet and Blogs. How do I know? I think it happened to me. Breaking News can be found here. Tune into Geraldo at Large two days after my post and Geraldo says everything I say almost verbatim. OK Geraldo, here's your chance to make things right. Kick all your interns in the ass and send them back home to Momma. Because I'm a nice guy, I'm not going to rip that cheesy mustache off your face. If I knew I was working for you, I'd ask to be put on the payroll. This is it. Make me a correspondent or bother some other sap. Anyway, I don't care if Barbara Walters sat on your lap for her Birthday. Quite frankly, it's a little too disgusting to even paint a picture in my mind.

"What is THE BIG WHEEL for $500?", "New death into old flicks", and "Bono Jovi?"

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  Q: "Almost anything is better in HDTV" True or False? A: Maybe, unless it's a friggin' game show that's only so-so on a 12" B&W. Why is it then that I must dish out $4000 to see Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy in Hi Def? I hate to tell the Japs that ship us these things, if you're going to sell these things like hotcakes, you might want to talk about some of the stronger points of what you can expect when you hook the damn thing up and plug it in. Alex Trebek isn't going to make me run to Circuit City for anything and geez, I wouldn't even let him influence me to pick up the phone and call for Blue Cross and Blue Shield life insurance that he pitches in commercials. Besides making Trebek's face crystal clear and appear as the surface of the moon, and the crow's feet and bags around and under Vanna White's eyes, what's the big deal? Vanna keeps hinting at a retirement soon. If she sees herself in HD, she might start packing her bags and heading back to Myrtle Beach . I say, there's six Star Wars movies available and plenty of other programs on television that should shout out "hip, hip, hooray" for the crystal clear picture you get with HD. All you get here is an older Alex, an older Vanna, and a bigger head on the shoulders of Pat Sajak.
• Zombie wakes up two dead horror franchises in time for Halloween 2007. The former White Zombie founder and frontman who later went solo, and more recently Directed two "B" horror flicks that went straight to video, just acquired the Halloween and Friday the 13th movie franchises. What does this mean? Considering there are God knows how many sequels of each, he can now do with them as he pleases. He can chop the hell out of them and slice them and dice them anyway he wants. He can also remake them all, OR he can make new ones to add to the collection. Whatever he chooses, they will be finished in "Blood-o-Rama". It's important to note that from part 2 of both films, they were on a downhill slide. As it finished a couple years ago, Halloween was a disaster with L.L. Cool J as the main character on the run. As for Friday the 13th, after killing astronauts on a space station, Jason returned to Earth to kill with his partner in crime, Freddie Kreuger. This is good you see, there's a few dozen horror movies that are really terrible that comes out every year. Even if a few hundred people total see these things, there's always a bunch of sequels. Rob is going to make money doing whatever he wants the movie rights, keep making records and music videos, and still have time leftover to sing in the church choir on Sunday. He may not look typical of the friend you invite over to sit with the family at Thanksgiving, but Dad will love him because he's greasy and dirty with bloody knuckles. These indicate a hard working guy and there you have Rob.
• Bono Jovi? - Guess who's tugging on Bono's leather jacket from behind? None other than Jon Bon Jovi. These two guys are now going to be slugging it out over who might be the better humanitarian. Jon has had a passion for building new homes for those with bad luck be it, loss of a job or losing their home in a hurricane, fire, or flood. Bon Jovi who also owns the Arena Football League's Philly, PA team is kicking his generosity into high gear after appearing on Oprah just one month ago. Holding Habitat For Humanity close to his heart, Jon went to work right away when former President Jimmy Carter gave him a call for help after passing on Bono. "Have you seen Bono's work?" asked Mr. Carter. "Shoddy. A rush job. The houses looked as if some 8th graders did them in wood shop!" In addition, Bono didn't know which end of the hammer to use to hit the nail, and wouldn't remove his sunglasses no matter what." On the other end, Bon Jovi seems to know his way around the Home Depot and gets in there, rolls up his sleeves, and goes to work however, Bon Jovi's vision may be just that. He wants to rebuild a decaying Philly and has already put the plan in motion. First thing to do before the houses is to start with the sandwich shops that use Cheese Wiz on the Philly steaks. That aerosol can is full of CFC's which damage the ozone layer. Jon is advising they use Kraft American Cheese slices as an alternative. That step may take the most convincing to succeed. To Jon I say, Good Luck. To show how serious he is, visit Bon Jovi's website and see how much information you can view...NONE. You must now pay just to enter. Of course, the money goes towards Jon's project. Any new CD's for the boys? A box set which chronicles their history. Jon's gonna be tied up for the next decade or so in areas other than recording music.

"Intersection", "The great pick me ups", and "Smashing bad pumpkins"

• Doin' my job "Old Style" before catching up with "Jack, Jim, and Jose" - In today's abbreviated post I take a look at a few things that even YOU can feel free to discuss at the water cooler on Friday! Hey, somewhere up in Northern Illinois earlier this week an elderly man dressed as a crossing guard was lying face down in the street with a car stopped a few feet away from the man. A woman taking the kids to school sees what's going on and immediately pulls out the phone to call the cops assuming the stopped car in the middle of the street hit the man. The woman in the car closest to the man frantically tries to talk her way out of the situation to bystanders. She never hit the guy! She gives the same story to the cops while EMT's arrive and turn the guy over who is still breathing. They attempt to have his car towed while he goes to the hospital and come across a mountain of beer cans on the passanger side floorboard. Well, at the ER the police get the news and have staffers administer a breathalizer test. As suspected, the old guy was reporting to work intoxicated. He would have been helping school kids cross a busy street while being OVER four times the legal limit in Illinois. Nobody hit the guy. He just staggered into the street at 6:30 AM and fell face first orange vest, stop sign and all. Needless to say, upon being discharged a few days later, his job had been filled. Parents are still outraged that cops had no legal grounds for a DUI although, he did pick up several tickets anyway. I Think my mentioning this is punishment enough for the guy. Here's to ya!
• You know who "Matthew Lesko" is? He's the annoying guy with television commercials filmed around the U.S. Capital. He wears red framed glasses and wears a neon green suit covered with question marks like "The Riddler". While he hops and jumps around like he's got ants in his pants, he tells us about all the things the government can give us for free (ONLY if you pay the $30 for his book). Now everyone...he's expanding to other areas. One of his little secrets he says, is if you play your cards right you can get free coffee at Starbucks for life! (Didn't Kramer get this deal on "Seinfeld" when he settled a lawsuit for spilling hot coffee?). Now, Fox News was supposed to give away the secret you need to do this however, a good magician never reveals how the trick was done. Mmmkay, you can get pretty much anything for free if you just slip and fall, grab your back and scream, and threaten to call your attorney. Think about this carefully, do some planning in advance, and you can pretty much avoid paying for anything, ANYWHERE. I didn't watch Fox long enough to see the whole trick. I'm more concerned about cocaine.
• "Cocaine". is now a brand name that has an "R" inside of a circle. It's a drink that can be found in the 7-11 refrigerator next to "Red Bull". There's no age requirement for this new drink however, the name alone is making some places nervous about selling this stuff to kids and it could result in a misunderstanding typical of "Three's Company" when parents ask, "Hey Junior, what do you have there?"and Junior replies, "Oh nothing. Just Cocaine". Remember "Jolt" Cola in the 1980's? nobody liked that name either because kids were buying it, and God knows they don't need a can of soda equal in caffeine to five cups of coffee. "Jolt" is still out there in certain places if you look long and hard enough. "Red Bull" is everywhere and advertises as well as sponsor sporting events. I don't think you'll be seeing this happen with "Cocaine", which is supposed to be 10x stronger than The Bull. What they fail to realize is that these things are used primarily as mixers in bars and clubs and not The World's Strongest Man competitions on ESPN. I must get some Cocaine just for the novelty.
• Finally, heeeeere's Halloween. It seems there's always got to be something to spoil the fun each year, Blame it on the guy who makes the weather. Pumpkins were picked especially early this year because well, you can't count on the weather for anything lately. It wasn't your imagination. Pumpkins really were up for sale in September at grocery stores and farmstands. For people who look forward to this orange mess full of goop for cooking and baking, you've probably already gutted the suckers and pulled out the slimy, seedy inside to make your cakes and pies. If you're like me, you say ,"Who the @*&! cares?!" Let's face it, people ran out to get these to carve and seeing they were starting to go bad, already carved them up. Now they're really going bad and are a day or two from hitting the trash. Will you get another one? Don't be stupid! There's plenty of other "round" things to carve. If you can still find a good one, how about a melon? Cantaloupe, honeydew, musk, water. How about a potato or coconut? Think small this year and do a grapefruit or orange. If you're really talented, carve a lime like they do in that Corona Beer commercial, Lastly, you can be like me and close the blinds and turn off the lights and pretend nobody's home!
  
  
  

"Chicago's 1st Hurricane Hits" and "Foley's Boxers on eBay"

• The fallout after the blowout - Dateline 10/2/06 Reprinted from The Chicago Bugle: Chicago (AP) - Chicago area residents are exiting their homes this morning to head to work, only to find 100 year old oak trees and in some cases, their roofs laying on their carss and front lawns. Severe storms ripped through Northern Illinois dumping 5" of rain in a few hours. Winds howled at gusts clocked more than 75 mph and knocked down power lines leaving several hundred thousand ComEd users in the dark for hours. This weather event, the worst in nearly a decade, has forced many to leave their homes. Refrigerators hold nothing but spoiled food and the tap water is unsafe to drink. Area creeks, rivers and streams are expected to crest this weekend several feet above flood stage. A woman who took time out from the cleanup to talk to us but chose not to give her name remarked, "It's was the wosest I ever seen. I looked out and said Lordy...don't take the place I stay. The eye of the hurricane passed, but then we had some mo!" OK, obviously not in the paper however, someone did make that statement to FOX news Chicago. This is one for the record books, and I'm not talking about the rain, hail, wind and everything else. To think that a hurricane formed right over Chicago and swirled it's way out to sea has NEVER happened until now. Everything happened so fast that there wasn't any time for the people at NOAA hurricane tracking to come up with a name. So, for the first time since they started naming storms in the 1930's, I suppose this will go in the books nameless.
• Which is worse? - Because of all the scams and claims of racism after Katrina, people are more quick than ever to look at every option there is to make money off an "Act of God". A microburst is said to have been behind several collapsed buildings and warehouses SW of the city. Other things that went along with this storm was the hail and damage it caused to cars and windows. A 1000 or so trees either snapped in half or flew through the air to end up through someone's roof. While all this was going on, television reporters went to a bad part of town to talk to people there who had an axe to grind because a tree limb wasnt yet lifted off the hood of their car two hours after the storm was over. A few people suggested that because of their race and where they live, Chicago is giving them a screw job and shuffling them to the bottom of the deck while making million dollar homes top priority. Complaints over no power and spoiled food. Water in the basement. A broken window or two on the house. Yep, you all have it rough! Contact the Governor's office and he can contact Washington. Disaster area? These places have already been that for thirty years. Tell you what...since your family came up North after Katrina for help, why not go down there now because nobody will come out and fix your window on your front door? Maybe if enough people go, you'll at least get a $100 gift card to Target for the "inconvenience". Ssshhh! Quiet! Don't look for a handout. This was only a thunderstorm! Get over it!
• What about Sen. Ted Kennedy? - What's up with this Congressman Mark Foley and his secret life? Yeah, there was his admission of guilt and what he did was unnacceptable if he's working on taxpayers time or not. It just wasn't right either. Kind of like Nancy Reagan's catchphrase of the 80's still used today..."Just say no to Drugs". Imagine her being a guest speaker to a bunch of kids, saying her famous quote, and then afterwards going backstage to shoot up heroin? Same thing this Foley has done. At first, he claimed a drinking problem caused his clouded judgement. He resigned from his Post to go to rehab and then they said, "OK, now that we have that out of the way, what else?" Oh yeah, he forgot to mention his mention his mental illness. "Anything else?" They ask him. "Yes, one more thing I forgot...I'm homosexual." Hmmm. As they head out the door Foley screams out, "Wait! Did I mention the Priest at my church that molested me on a regular basis when I was a kid?!" ...And that was that at least for now. Bottom line: Anything you may do illegally can easily be swept under the rug when your trump card includes sexual abuse by a Priest. I still want to know about Ted Kennedy. Mark Foley had personal problems and now he's history. Kennedy DOESN'T? Ha!