... to an angel who would have turned 32 today.

Love, Mom.



iTunes is currently playing: Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear from the album Guilty: 30 Years of Randy Newman by Randy Newman.

... that this year's Oscar show was the worst ever ... totally BORING!!!!!!!!! And apparently we are not alone.



Here are a few suggestions for next year:

1) Get Steve Martin or Billy Crystal to do the show. (DO NOT TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER or your show will suck.)

2) Nominate FIVE songs, not three.

3) Make a rule forbidding rap music from being nominated.

4) Don't put together montage after montage of film clips to break up the monotony of the show. (HINT: If the show is not monotonous, it won't NEED to be broken up.)

5) Don't keep telling us how great movies look ON THE BIG SCREEN in a pathetic attempt to increase theatre attendance. (HINT: If you stop making crappy movies, you won't have to do things to increase attendance.)

6) Make sure that at least ONE celebrity wears a dress that will have people talking the next day. (Think Bjork and her swan dress or Nicholson's ex-girlfriend in her tutu.)

iTunes is currently playing: I Love L.A. from the album Trouble in Paradise by Randy Newman.

It's hard to find time for romance when you are the leader of the free world!

NEW DELHI [News Wire Services] - President Bush is taking some ribbing on his trip to India for failing to take his wife to one of the world's most romantic sites - the Taj Mahal.

Toasting his guests at a luncheon yesterday, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh couldn't resist teasing Bush.

"I am truly sorry the President is not taking you to Taj Mahal this time," Singh told the Frist Lady. "I hope he will be more chivalrous next time you are here."

The President said Singh wasn't the only one to notice the omission.

"I've been hearing about it from Laura ever since I told her that we weren't going," he said.

The majestic 17th-century white marble mausoleum is a monument to love, built by Mogul Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal.

iTunes is currently playing: Life During Wartime from the album Fear Of Music by Talking Heads.

... was "necessary to satisfy immediate emergency needs" ???

From a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) regarding fraud and abuse by alleged victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita:



Your tax dollars at work, folks!

iTunes is currently playing: Money, Money, Money from the album Mamma Mia! - Original Cast [5th Anniversary Release with Bonus Tracks] by Louise Plowright, Jenny Galloway, Neal Wright & Siobhan McCarthy.

an aging actress stares at a photo in a silver frame.
speaks to her husband dead forty years of anniversary roses.
white for truth, red for passion.
all we ever needed, she says.

from "Flowers on Ice (1988)"



iTunes is currently playing: Hearts And Flowers from the album Hearts And Flowers by Joan Armatrading.

This is Terry Hatcher ("Desperate Housewives") at the recent (televised) Grammy Awards wearing a transparent dress with nothing but boy-cut briefs underneath.

Don't they sell slips anymore?



iTunes is currently playing: Looking For Love On Broadway from the album JT by James Taylor.

... and I am once again ashamed to live in a country that murders people in an alleged attempt to fight crime.

From the Associated Press:

A double murderer who said he didn't want to be known as a number became the 1,000th person executed in the United States since capital punishment resumed 28 years ago.

...

"Maybe Kenneth Boyd won't have died in vain, in a way, because I believe the more people think about the death penalty and are exposed to it, the more they don't like it," said Stephen Dear, executive director of People of Faith Against the Death Penalty.

"Any attention to the death penalty is good because it's a filthy, rotten system," he said.

iTunes is currently playing: The Mob Song from the album Beauty And The Beast by Walt Disney Music Company.

... third world countries!

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has urged families in Venezuela not to mark Halloween, calling it a U.S. custom alien to the South American nation, the BBC reported this weekend.

"Families go and begin to disguise their children as witches. This is contrary to our way," Mr Chavez said during his weekly radio and TV show.

He also said Halloween was a "game of terror."

Chavez is known as a fierce critic of the U.S. government and President Bush personally.

iTunes is currently playing: Ghost Story from the album Brand New Day by Sting.

... but red, white, and blue POP TARTS?? i'm sorry, but that is just too gross.



iTunes is currently playing: America from the album West Side Story- Original Broadway Cast by Chita Rivera & Marilyn Cooper.

During the last year of his life, the late Bob Denver underwent a quadruple heart bypass and suffered from cancer. Yet when asked in a recent interview to describe his best and worst memories, he responded, "I have no worst experiences."

Rest in peace, little buddy.

iTunes is currently playing: Rest For The Weary from the album The Rainy Season by Marc Cohn.