Love in the Afternoon, Key West, Florida

I’ve returned from my “how not to travel” Florida adventure broke, exhausted and behind at work — but it was all worth it to see my good friends Nick & Jenn married at the Hemingway House in Key West.
Will have to go into the travel disaster later over drinks with anyone who’d like to hear. [...]

Easy, Tiger

So Easy Tiger, the new Ryan Adams album, is coming out next month.

I used to sort of hold my breath when a new Ryan Adams album came out — hoping it was going to be great, afraid it was going to be awful, usually finding it not bad but in need of some heavy editing. [...]

Al Gore’s desk

Holy God.
This is Al Gore’s office, as depicted in a Time photo gallery:

It’s…a mess.
A glorious mess.
There’s something slightly unnerving about a clean office — or a clean desk, if you have a cubicle. At the News & Record nearly every reporter’s desk is piled with files, maps, old notes and notebooks, tape recording equipment, books, [...]

Crooked Little Vein

Warren Ellis’ first novel, Crooked Little Vein, is coming out in August. The advanced praise is in, the ads have been created and I have my copy pre-ordered.

A couple of things about this ad:
1) It’s hard for me to remember a time when I was this excited for the release of a book. This is [...]

Best. Panel. Evar.

Warren Ellis had this great thread recently over at The Engine.
He asked people for their nominations for the greatest single panel in comics and started things off with this one:

Some of the entries are serious – lots of Sandman, Preacher, Watchmen, panels from Batman: The Killing Joke.
But the best ones were just hilarious. Some of [...]

And every day he’s in the jungle, Charlie gets stronger…

Call me an old man, call me a nerd — but Google Video’s large, free library of Charlie Rose Show episodes is, for me, one of those wonderful things about the Internet that justifies thousands of “Take a Quiz to Figure Out Which Care Bear You Are” sites and the now literally dozens of [...]

Newspaper stories — on television

Check out my friend Amanda Lehmert being interviewed on the New England Cable News network from the offices of the Cape Cod Times.
She’s talking about a really great story she just did — two people who are living on the road, biking across America to lose weight, change their lives and have an adventure together.
Thank [...]

A real wild child?

After having finally seen Everything is Illuminated I have a new found respect for Elijah Wood’s acting prowess.
I am, however, having a hard time imagining him as Iggy Pop.

Who’s reading and why?

I’m putting together some stuff for this year’s “Discover the Triad” — a magazine guide to the area published by the N&R.
Thumbing through last year’s for some idea how not to make my assignments…well, horribly boring…I found a piece about blogging by Lex Alexander.
It contains the following description of Ed Cone’s blog, one of a [...]

Meet Dack Rambo

So years ago, when I had the flu pretty badly and was in bed watching daytime television and wishing to die, I saw what had to be a made for television movie starring a guy named (I swear to God) Dack Rambo.
I don’t remember exactly what the movie was about — a guy had amnesia, [...]

More proof of just how seriously I take my blog

Because if I’m going to Hell you’re all coming with me I now present, for your viewing pleasure, the Zombie last supper:

“It’s Go-Go, not Cry-Cry.”

All right.
Deduct 20 points from Gryffindor because I didn’t go see Grindhouse on opening weekend. This movie deserves to have cleaned up at the box office. I have to believe that it didn’t because, as someone said to me weeks ago, the marketing was sort of lousy and people didn’t know what to expect.
I [...]

The little, Southern things

My best friend Amanda was down from Cape Cod this week.

We threw a Cinco de Mayo party for which we ended up being over-prepared. Most of the people I work with showed up – more people than I’ve ever had at my place at one time, but it all worked out.
I’ve been trying to sell [...]

Cheap Eats: It’s late and you’re starving

Go Triad’s Cheap Eats columnist Luke McIntyre looks at where to eat after last call.
I’m partial to Waffle House, myself — though, as some have noted, it is perhaps the best place in Greensboro to get both scattered, chunked and topped hashbrowns AND shot in the face.
Luke’s picks are good too — including old stand-by [...]

Mayweather v. De La Hoya: Pathos on a deadline

I didn’t see the Floyd Mayweather v. Oscar De La Hoya fight Saturday night.

I was hosting a Cinco de Mayo party.
But in reading the AP story, posted just before 1 a.m. Sunday morning, I’m struck by how much more fun sports writers are generally having. Not all the time, of course. Like those of [...]

Reporter covers Gore speech, whether he wants it or not

The San Antonio Express News snuck a reporter into Al Gore’s no-press speech at the American Institute of Architects convention.
The paper’s public editor argues the reporter did nothing unethical,registering under his own name, entering the event and then writing about it. Comparing the event (in terms of coverage only) to a Klan rally, he argues [...]

More proof money can’t buy dignity

From the AP story on hotel heiress Paris Hilton being sentenced to 45 days in jail:
As a city prosecutor said during closing arguments that Hilton deserved jail time, Hilton’s mother, Kathy, laughed. When the judge ruled, Kathy Hilton then blurted out: “May I have your autograph?”

The Press

The first paper I ever worked for was a small town daily that no longer had its own presses.
It did have a great old-school composing room though, where guys who’d been in the business since the days of copy-boys cut the day’s news with Exacto knives.
Every now and then one of the reporters [...]

Through the drinking glass

I don’t need dishes. I’ve still got these gorgeous black ones that I mocked before buying a set of my own.
But if I did I’d buy these Alice in Wonderland Dishes from Fishs Eddy:

They’re quiet yet strange, reproducing the original engravings by Victorian artist Sir John Tenniel.
I love this kind of stuff. But I have [...]

White Russian not included

Oh, man.
They’re releasing action figures from what may be my favorite Cohen Brothers movie, The Big Lebowski.
You can, of course get The Dude:

Also available: perhaps the greatest character John Goodman ever played, Walter (the paranoid Vietnam vet who DOES NOT BOWL ON SHABBOS!):

The Dude does not come with his constant companion, a White Russian, but [...]