It was a very close race for the past 8 months in Minnesota, but the results are finally in: Al Franken wins the U.S. Senate seat. At this point, it doesn’t really surprise me either. The Democrats have been getting what they want a lot lately.
From what I hear, Franken can be a hothead so the Senate better take caution. I can at least practice calling the new Senator by his nickname: Al Frankenstein. Mary Shelley, eat your heart out.
Departing from politics once again, the time has come once again for Wild Card Friday! For this week, I will discuss my strawberry adventure and will give you my remarks on the trio of recent celebrity deaths this week.
First, I will share with you my strawberry quest. It started this morning when my mom wanted to go strawberry picking. We had to go right away, as waiting would make it even hotter weather to pick them.
So me and my brother went with my mom and we drove to a strawberry farm. I grabbed my rectangular carton and was driven out to the strawberry patch.
Once there, I got out and went to work. I searched far and wide, lifting leaves and carefully inspecting each berry. They had to be perfect, and I would only pluck the good ones. After sweeping my assigned row a couple times, it was starting to get hot, and my carton was only about a third full.
With my brother and mom about finished, we all headed back with our well-earned crimson treasure. They then got weighed. Having a carton that could hold ten pounds, I only got about three and a half pounds.
Altogether, our bounty was 13 pounds of strawberries. We paid for our reward, took it with us, and went home.
And now, my remarks on the triad of celebrity deaths. They say bad things always happen in threes. But I didn’t think the third would happen this quickly.
It started on Tuesday with Late Night television legend Ed McMahon. I have expressed my regards in Tuesday’s entry, but I still find it unbelievable for him to go like this. He set the stage for comedians like Jay Leno and Conan O’Brian. Granted, he was just a sidekick. But he was a really good sidekick, and a legendary one at that. After that, the rest happened pretty fast.
Farrah Fawcett died early Thursday afternoon. Unfortunately, I don’t know too much about her. She is kind of before my time. One generation too late. I do know that she was on a season of Charlie’s Angels. Weird Al Yankovic also mentions wanting to buy her famous swimsuit poster on his Backstreet Boy parody, “eBay”. Other than that, I don’t really know much about her.
Finally, a celebrity death that would trump all the others in fame and adulation happened. Michael Jackson was pronounced dead at 2:26 Pacific Time. Upon hearing this news, I could not believe what I was hearing. It almost felt like a dream. Was this really happening? I admit that I’m not a diehard MJ fan, but the very fact of him completing the death trifecta was shocking. Three Aces of Spades in less than three days. Michael Jackson was adored by many around the world, selling over 100 million of just his “Thriller” album alone. My other memories of him come not from his music, but from the parodies of his music. Interestingly, I have a third connection to Weird Al parodies. Two of them, in fact. Weird Al Yanovic has parodied him in two food-related parodies. “Eat It” (A parody of “Beat It”) and “Fat” (A parody of “Bad”).
All in all, it was a shocking week of celebrity deaths, and Michael Jackson’s death really took the cake. Looking back on all the deaths this week, it has really brought to me an astonishing truth. No matter how famous you are or will become, you can not take your wealth with you.
A life of fame becomes nothing more than a futile attempt to be enjoyed, loved, or cherished. At the moment of death, all power is lost, and you become nothing more than a fading memory. A memory that is only kept alive by a lasting legacy.
In summary, I would have to say that life is short. Find the one important thing that matters and don’t let it go. Hold it, embrace it, and cherish it. And I am glad to say that I have found this thing, and I am not letting go. R.I.P. Michael Jackson. You WILL be missed.
In very much the same way the Democrats in Congress rushed the stimulus bill through, they now want to vote on the 1,201 page (previously 946 page) monstrosity: The Waxman-Markey Global Warming Bill. Now wait just a minute here! Just a few months ago, they proceeded to pass the last bill in undue haste.
There was no time to think about it. They just pushed it through before we even knew anything about it. First of all, this bill will have virtually no impact on climate whatsoever. This was stated from the Heritage Foundation, when they sited the analysis of the Congressional Budget Office.
This bill in the long run will cost this country millions of jobs, trillions of lost income, a larger national debt, and higher energy prices. Prices that are expected to be 50 to 90 percent higher than they are now. Not wanting to make the same mistake as last time, the Dems hired some speedreaders to read through this massive bill.
Now it doesn’t matter whether they have these speedreaders or not. They will still want to pass the bill anyway. What Congress needs to do is allow us to see a few of the important items in the bill so we can see how it will affect us. All this looks like to me is just another useless bill. Why would you pass a climate bill if it does NOTHING to change the climate? All I see it as is just another way to tax us and destroy even more of the jobs that still remain in this country.
I have a bad feeling that this is not the last of the outrageous legislation that the liberal run congress will be passing. Not by a long shot. There might be hope in 2010. Maybe.
Now I clearly understand why it’s so hard to get a job in Michigan. According to this map from the Sacremento Bee, Michigan won’t see pre-recession levels until 2014.
Texas, on the other hand, will rebound as early as this year or next year. I’m fed up with Michigan. That’s it. I’m moving to Texas. That’s if I can get a JOB to save enough money to move out of this vocational wasteland….
North Korea is not holding back, and doesn’t seem to fear our president, as they plan on launching a missile at Hawaii on the Fourth of July. Hawaii seems to have everything under control, with their missile defense systems.
With this technology, it seems that they can blow up the missile in its final stage of flight. This may sound conforting, but North Korea’s reckless attitude toward our country is really starting to scare me. The North Koreans detect weakness in President Obama, which is why they’re not afraid of going after us.
If Obama wants to keep our country safe, he needs to show more muscle and let Kim Jung-il know we mean business. This calls for responsibility, which is something that I still need to see more of.
This just in. Ed McMahon has recently died at 85 today. In thinking about the life of Ed McMahon, one song comes to mind. That would be the song “Here’s Johnny” by Weird Al Yankovic.
My only other memory of him is when he was involved with Publisher’s Clearing House.
Farewell, Mr. McMahon. You have set the standard in Late Night TV and we will not forget you.
I don’t really have much for this week’s Wild Card Friday. What I recently found is a Facebook/Twitter site for gamers. It keeps track of your gaming activity and the gaming activity of your friends. It’s called Raptr, and I just finished setting up an account.
If you are a gamer and you feel like signing for another social networking site, I suggest you try it out. That was the last card in this deck. I should have a fresh new deck next week. Until then, keep on gaming!
I’ve heard of vending machines selling iPods, and even more common, candy and snacks. But gold? The Gold Rush is coming to Germany, in the form of vending machines.
Pretty soon, the Germans will be able to buy their gold like they buy candy. It sounds good to me. Considering all the people that’s investing in gold, it would be a hit over here. “There’s gold in them thar hills!” More like “There’s gold in them thar machines!” What will they think of next?
After President Obama swatted a fly during a CNBC interview, PETA sent a strong message to Obama: It’s personal. Really? We’re talking about a fly here! A fly! I know that PETA is stupid to begin with, but this really takes the cake.
After hearing about this, I think I’ll go find a fly and kill it. And it will be done using my lethal weapon of choice: a fly swatter.
Just when I thought that conservatism has totally lost it’s voice, I found this:
ABC, for the next nine days, is going to broadcast a primetime infomercial on President Obama’s healthcare agenda.
On the night of June 24, the media and government become one, when ABC turns its programming over to President Obama and White House officials to push government run health care — a move that has ignited an ethical firestorm! Highlights on the agenda: ABCNEWS anchor Charlie Gibson will deliver WORLD NEWS from the Blue Room of the White House. The network plans a primetime special — ‘Prescription for America’ — originating from the East Room, exclude opposing voices on the debate.
My only question is where’s the opposition? Don’t we get to hear both sides of the story? Echoing the sentiment of my friend, “corporate media is mass mind control”. I think he’s right.
This doesn’t make much since at all. With the issue at Gitmo, we have a prison filled with terrorists. The solution? Give them a vacation. Now I don’t understand how this is going to be of any help at all.
Having these people run around in places like Bermuda would not be safe for tourism. Britain is not amused either. With Bermuda being a British colony, this didn’t make the Brits too happy. This is especially so, considering that we did this without informing them.
I guess if you’re a prisoner, you get a vacation. Please tell me how this makes any kind of sense. After thinking about it for a while, it still doesn’t make any sense at all. Crime doesn’t pay. Until now, I guess.
Ah, how I miss the old days of gaming. Games were simple, more challenging, and the focus was on fun, not fanservice. For this week, I will share with you my trip down memory lane. Well, sort of. You will hear the rediscovery of the ancient console that shaped my video gaming past: the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).
My journey started when my mom started playing with Wii Fit, one of the presents that she got for her 50th birthday. In contrasting that game, I thought of the Power Pad, and how I used to play on that when I was younger. With that, I went out to the big garage and unearthed the old Power Pad. I got out the NES and hooked it up. I put in Athletic World and chose Expert mode.
Amazingly, after all these years, the pad was still working pretty well. I completed two rounds of that game. One round was during the day, the other at night. When I saw round 3, I didn’t want to go on, seeing that the two rounds just keep repeating over and over.
Continuing on my journey, I played World Class Track Meet. I played through the Olympics mode, but it wasn’t what I wanted. I then played Tournament mode and realized that this was what I was going after. This mode consisted of two events: 100m dash and 110m hurdles.
In the tournament, there were six opponents: Turtle, Bear, Horse, Rabbit, Bobcat, and Cheetah. All the opponents were a cinch to beat in the 100m dash. None of them were any match against my 6.3 second time. Not even Cheetah, who clocked in at 10 seconds. The hurdles were the challenging part.
In a Michael Phelps victory, I beat Cheetah in the 110 hurdles. His time was 13.90 seconds. My time was 13.84 seconds. I beat him by 0.06 seconds and got the gold trophy. What an epic victory.
For the next leg of my journey, I put in Super Mario Bros. 3. For this game, I took the fast track and got all three warp whistles: the first two in Grass Land and the third one in Desert Land. With the whistles, I warped to Dark Land. Using the limited resources I had, I got past all the levels and beat Bowser.
I then played a second game. This time, I played the whole way through, with 28 P-Wings at my disposal. Using them and collecting other resources along the way, they were more than enough for me to complete the game for a second time. Quite the classic and still fun to play.
My last part of my journey brings me to Wizards & Warriors III – Kuros: Visions of Power. This was a game that I took from my friend, since he didn’t want it anymore. Frustrated, he threw the game in the dew saturated grass, saying that he didn’t want to play it anymore. Since then, the game has been mine and I began my journey through the city of Piedup.
Having played through the whole game, I lost to the final boss. I had to start all over from the beginning. Determined to beat the game (as I had before in the past), I played through again and got to the final boss. It was an epic battle. I was on my last life and had only one unit of life left in my life bar. One hit away from death.
Nonetheless, I hacked away at the last few units of Malkil’s life bar with my level 3 knight. Suddenly, he died and I won. Definitely one of the most epic battles I’ve had in gaming.
Thus ends my journey through the video games of yesteryear. For those of you that missed out (all you younger people out there), some of those games can be bought for the Virtual Console on the Wii. Play them, and enjoy all the classics that you missed. Granted they’re not 3D, but are foundational in the games of the later generations.
Having finished this journey, I can say that it was an exciting one and I know one thing for certain. It definitely will not be the last one.
This just in. David Letterman just made a jab at Sarah Palin’s daughter, saying that she was knocked up during the seventh inning by A-Rod. Okay, so that story is a few days old. (I really need to get this fixed.) Moving on to the special interest story, Letterman made a controversial joke about Sarah Palin’s daughter, Bristol.
This referenced the Yankees game that she attended with her mother. Fact check. Bristol was NOT at the game. It was her younger 14-year-old sister, Willow. With that, Letterman made a joke about a 14-year-old being knocked up by A-Rod. Letterman also invited Sarah Palin on The Tonight Show. Palin, however, has no intentions to appear on the show.
Palin’s reason for declining is that she doesn’t want any part of Letterman’s ratings bait. After the jokes, Letterman apologized, admitting that the jokes were directed at Bristol, not Willow. Letterman has this to say in his apology.
“These are not jokes made about her 14-year-old daughter. I would never, never make jokes about raping or having sex of any description with a 14-year-old girl. I mean, look at my record. It has never happened. I don’t think it’s funny. I would never think it was funny. I wouldn’t put it in a joke…”
Maybe Letterman should think and do a little research before he cracks his jokes. To be honest, I’m really a Conan person myself. Letterman’s just stuffy and arrogant. Conan? He’s easier to relate to and he doesn’t tout that aura of elitism. And that’s the news for this week. I probably won’t be going with this format again. To all of you in the blogosphere, I hope that you all have a good day.
After looking at my budget, I saw that I didn’t have the funds to do a sports story. In lieu of that, we’ll move on to the financial news. It doesn’t look like I’ll be traveling too far, as gas prices will be skyrocketing this summer.
With predictions as much as $250 a barrel, this will put a serious choke on the tourism industry. On the other hand, there’s always The Great Indoors, where I can frolic through the hallways, read books, and play video games.
After covering Minnesota’s cold June weather, we now go to the news. Looking at the news, I have noticed an interesting fact: CBS News is in last place.
Looking at the news competition, NBC is in first with 7,960,000 viewers. ABC is trailing in second, with 7,150,000 viewers. CBS comes in dead last, with 5,180,000 viewers. I figure that some of the remaining viewers watch their evening news on cable. MSNBC, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, and other cable news channels.
Looking back at the ratings for the CBS Evening News, the numbers are pretty telling. Maybe the consumers want a different perspective on the way the news is covered. It’s that, or they’re just tired of the biased angle that they take on covering President Obama.
Fresh perspective, or too much bias? I’ll let you make the call on that. I sense a theme going on here this week. I think I’ll do sports next, or a special interest story. And that’s the news.
Thankfully, there’s no snow around here. However, a couple of inches of snow fell in western North Dakota on Saturday.
Now this is kind of weird, considering I had a dream about it snowing here a few days ago. The temperature was 15 degrees, and I was angry Global warming? Maybe Al Gore should visit North Dakota. There’s snow in them thar hills!
I’ll say it again. The state of the “Big Three” is looking good….for Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft, that is! What did you think I was talking about? Automobiles?
Shuffling through the Wild Card Friday deck, I have decided to talk about E3 this week. Yes, E3. The video gaming mecca that developers, the press, and hard core gamers make their annual pilgrimage to. Right in sunny LA.
I could ramble on about the conference itself, but let’s get down to business about the star attraction of E3: the games. Having the chance to look through some of the games, I was impressed. 2010 is going to be an exciting year for gaming.
Buy why wait until 2010? Some awesome games are on the horizon and are slated for release in late 2009. What are these awesome games? Where do I begin?
Going by console, we’ll start with Sony. Sony has a promising and exciting lineup of games. First of all, Katamari Forever is on its way, and will be rolling to the PlayStation 3 this fall. The Japanese release, Katamari Damacy Tribute will release next month in July. Next, for all you RPG fans out there, Final Fantasy XIII will be released in spring 2010 (Winter 2009 for the Japanese). And we’re not finished yet. Hideo Kojima has began development on a new Metal Gear Solid game. Metal Gear Solid: Rising is in the works, so we won’t be seeing a release date anytime soon. All I know is that Raiden will be the main character, and will probably focus on his storyline.
In the Nintendo realm, Mario has not been taking any vacation. In fact, he’s been busier than ever with the slew of Mario games he’s been working on. The first one is New Super Mario Bros. Wii. This game sounds a lot like its DS predecessor, but it’s a little different. You and three others can play online as Mario, Luigi, and two different colored Toads. I don’t know if there are other characters, but that’s what I saw in the video. In addition to that, there are new power-ups, and you can pick up a character and throw them. New Super Mario Bros. Wii will be released this holiday 2009. Now this is only one Mario game.
The next one is Super Mario Galaxy 2. Mario is back with more challenging levels. But he’s not alone, as Mario will be able to ride Yoshi this time. Bee Mario makes a run, along with some power-ups for Yoshi! This is an exciting game, and it is slated to be released in 2010.
There is also another RPG planned for to be released on the DS called Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story. All I know about this one is that Mario and Luigi will be inside Bowser’s body. This one will be released on October 1, 2009.
I don’t have anything for Microsoft, as I don’t care much for their console brand, and I don’t own an Xbox 360 myself. If you feel that this console should be covered, you can provide the upcoming news for any Xbox 360 game that will be coming out in the future (Most likely another Halo game. As if that franchise doesn’t have enough hype already.)
All in all, 2010 looks like an awesome year for gaming, and that season will be starting as early as this fall. E3 did not disappoint this year, and I’m so glad they didn’t. Thank you E3, and I look forward to a fresh new gaming season this fall.
Really? If Obama’s tax plan goes through, Microsoft is taking some of its business overseas. More jobs would be lost in America if this tax plan is implemented. When does the madness end?
With the government pretty owning GM, it is now official: we own General Motors now. If we are the ones that pay the taxes that the government uses to spend on various programs, and the governments spends some of that money to acquire GM, that means that we, the taxpayers own GM now.
If that’s the case, then doesn’t that mean that I’m entitled to any car of my choice? Let’s see. I would like a red Cadillac CTS, since I partially own GM.
I’m waiting, Washington. Waiting for you to answer my question. “Dude, where’s my car?” Oh well. I’m probably not going to get my car, but a guy can dream, right?
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