JUST ELOPE AND BE DONE WITH IT

1. …That's what Prince William and Kate Middleton should do. Nobody in England wants to pay $10+ million for a royal wedding, the country's in an economic meltdown, for crissakes.
2. …So the prince's private secretary and the chief wedding organizer (is he on a reality show yet?), Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, has said that "the Royal family and the Middleton family will pay for the wedding - the church service, music, flowers, decoration, reception and honeymoon."
3. …Some reports say that it could give a boost to the British economy, what with all the keepsakes they'll sell, tourism it would create and celebration parties all over the country that would stimulate spending.
4. …You'd think the wedding was next week, the way the press has been reporting on it. It's not until next year - April 29 - so we'll have to put up with the hype from here on out.
5. …I'm sick of all the royal watcher experts on TV and all the folderol over it.
6. …Eung Yang of local News4 in Washington, D.C. said they (the watchers) were "chomping at the bit," trying to find out any and all of the details of the wedding. You bet they are.
7. …They're like a pack'a ravenous dogs; they smell raw meat.
8. …I can't understand him (William) or her (Kate) or even Prince Charles when they talk. They speak too fast for me. And daddy (PC) sounds all mumbly, like his mouth is full of something - that's the way he was with NBC's Brian Wilson ... er, Williams, a week or so ago on that Dateline special (taped before the engagement announcement) when he was talking all about the family and global warming, like Al Gore, remember him?
9. …And the reporters who cover the royals: Tom Bradby of ITV in London who did the famous interview of the couple. When he was later interviewed by the American press I couldn't follow him either. And the same for Katie Nicholl, a royal biographer who was all over the cable and net news shows and even acted as a "sub-anchor" for Entertainment Tonight, standing up, reporting and two-waying from London with the excitable (when isn't she?) Mary Hart. I've never heard such rapid-fire jabberwocky.
10. …This all reminds me of ... "England swings like a pendulum do; bobbies on bicycles two-by-two; Westminster Abbey, the tower of Big Ben; the rosy red cheeks of the little children." Aww. (Lyrics from Roger Miller's 1965 hit, England Swings, on Smash Records)
11. Hillary Clinton's done with elective office. She recently told Fox News Sunday's Chris Wallace (a great interviewer) that she's very happy in her job as secretary of state, loves what she's doing and has no intention of returning to politics.
12. …How many times have we heard this type of thing from politicians? They change their minds at the drop of a hat.
13. …She seemed very secretary of state-ish when she had a press conference the other day about those confounded WikiLeaks. (Are they related to the Wikipedia folks?)
14. …I thought she seemed almost presidential and had a presence.
15. …And her hair looks better (fuller and more natural colored) than it did back in her old campaign "daze."
16. Mr. Big Stuff is relieved that Jennifer Grey won on Dancing With the Stars because if she didn't she'd be crying again. He pointed out that "every time you turn around she was crying. If it wasn't about Patrick Swayze it was about something else. It was a crying shame."
17. A fan (31-year-old Tricia Ross) of Mike 'The Situation' Sorrentino of Jersey Shore fame had this to say about him while he was in New York signing copies of his book, "Here's the Situation: A Guide to Creeping [hitting] on Chicks, Avoiding Grenades [a solitary, unattractive girl], and Getting In Your GTL[Gym, Tan, Laundry] on the Jersey Shore:"
18. …I'd dip myself in oil and play slip 'n slide on him."
19. …The book sounds like a high-class read.
20. Everybody was in an uproar over those full-body scanners and pat-downs at airports at Thanksgiving travel time. They feel that they're invasive and don't trust the government when they say that the x-ray pictures won't show up on the Internet.
21. …And the pat-downs ... Some people have been humiliated and felt violated by the intrusive body checks. One man wound up with his own urine all over him at Detroit's Metropolitan Airport because a TSA (Transportation Security Administration) screener broke the seal on his urostomy bag and its contents spilled down his shirt and pants. Pretty embarrassing.
22. …On CNN one afternoon they had a lower-third headline that said "OUTRAGEOUS PAT DOWNS." When I saw that I thought, "Who is Pat Downs?," thinking it was someone involved in the story whose name I wasn't familiar with.
23. …But less than a minute later they added a hyphen between pat and downs and I realized it wasn't a person named PAT DOWNS but the PAT-DOWN procedure. Ha Ha Ha..
24. …Someone in the TV control room must've made a mistake or maybe a producer wasn't clear about what he/she wanted to be put on the screen. (I hope nobody lost their job over that. It's been known to happen.)
25. …The TSA has been too eager beaver-ish about the new policy. And TSA Administrator John Pistole needs to back off a bit on his hard-line position. When asked by a senator at a hearing on Capitol Hill if he was going to change the policy he said an emphatic "No." He's a real man.
26. …THIS JUST IN: Pistole later said that it's all an "evolving program" and that the TSA is "seeking the right balance between privacy and security."
27. …That's a boy.
28. NAKED, NAKED, NAKED. Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway are in their new movie, Love & Other Drugs, in which they do a lot of frolicking in the buff.
29. …And their partially clothed bodies graced the covers of Entertainment Weekly in three versions (Gee) promoting the "rom-com." They talked about "stripping away their inhibitions - and clothes - for director Edward Zwick's sweet, sexy romance." Good Grief!
30. …It was a bit much to take in the movie. She was upper-torso/full-frontal many, many times (I was surprised) and you saw him exposed from the side, lying in bed with her and then in another scene in which he scampers out of the room (full naked side view) holding his family jewels (not funny).
31. …Gyllenhaal ... Is he an actor? Is that what he thinks he does? When did he enter the world of beefcake, since his laughable Prince of Persia be-wigged flop?
32. …Him and her ... they're both nothing but show-offs.
33. It sounds like Rolls Royce's good name is fading. They make the engines for those double-decker, wide-bodied Airbus A380s. One of them (engine) blew up on a Qantas flight on Nov. 4 in Singapore (450 people on board but plane landed safely) and they now have to replace 40 defective pre-ordered engines to the airline company.
34. …I thought Rolls Royce meant high quality, God knows they mean high prices; their cars cost enough.
35. …You'd never get me on an Airbus. Too many people packed into it.
36. …But I will take a Rolls Royce "motor car." Can somebody out there arrange that?
37. New York congressman Charles Rangel, 80, sat before a House committee when it reached its decision last week to censure him for abusing his office and engaging in financial misconduct.
38. …He put his hand up to his face, teary-eyed and overcome by emotion, and said, "I don't know how much longer I have to live."
39. …What, is he ill? Has he been sick? I haven't heard any news about that. He's 80, so what?
40. …Did he mention this in order to get sympathy/pity from the panel?
41. …AND ANOTHER THING: How could he not afford a lawyer? All the money he's made over the years?
42. …He also said, "I'm not a crook," which brought back sweet memories of Richard Nixon when he said the same thing in his farewell speech from the White House in 1973 after he was brought down by the Watergate scandal.
43. MOVIE: "HARRY POTTER & THE DEATHLY HALLOWS. Part I." The seventh and final book of the J..K. Rowling series opened its first weekend by bringing in $125 million at the box office. The kids are visibly older now in the film and their adventures are about to come to an end. I thought the movie was good but it seemed real segment-y and many times scenes just abruptly changed and weren't tied together very well.
44. …For someone who's not familiar with all the books or the films in the series I couldn't tell you what the H was going on half the time.
45. …Mr. Highfalutin thought there was too much exposition and not enough action and believes they're saving it for the finale in Part II which will be in 3-D.
46. JUST ASKING. Is ABC's Matt Gutman the next Anderson Cooper (CNN), reporting from trouble spots all over the world and being the voice of the people (Keeping Them Honest)? Gutman did ABC's coverage of the BP oil spill and was most recently seen walking among the cholera-diseased in Haiti. Cooper does that a lot too.
47. …And Richard Engel, another young maverick, went giddy-up on-camera in Afghanistan a couple weekends ago. The golden boy of NBC News was seen on horseback "playing" the national sport (their version of polo) with a band of Young Gun-looking dudes in Bamiyan province. Instead of using a wood or plastic ball to score in the game they used a sacrificed goat that they all seemed to enjoy batting around (cruel).
48. …He reminded me of Hopalong Cassidy.
49. …A shot of Engel corralling with his teammates was used at the top of NBC Nightly News broadcast as a teaser and then he was later seen in his actual news report, having a good time with all of the Genghis Khans of the area.
50. …What some correspondents won't do to show off their versatility.
51. …Give him a reality show and shut him up. I've seen enough ridiculousness on the part of network reporters. What's he gonna do next? What's in his sidesaddle?
52. …I know a bunch of network old-timers who would be rolling over in their graves if they saw such a self-aggrandizing sight.
53. HEARD. The new announcer (previously was Walter Cronkite) for The CBS Evening News With Katie Couric pronounces her last name as "Kerick," like that of former New York police commissioner Bernard Kerick and not as "Koorick," as it is pronounced by most people.
54. …Somebody oughta make him correct that. It's not accurate and sounds funny.
55. Glenn Beck had this to say about Barbara Bush: "Talk down to me, oatmeal box lady," referring to the Quaker Oats icon and, I guess, that white hair that sticks out from his hat.
56. …Beck's dander got up over comments the elder Bush's wife made when she was asked about Sarah Palin by Larry King on his show. Mrs. Bush said she (Palin) was beautiful and then suggested that she stay in Alaska (and consequently not run for president) very nonchalantly.
57. …It was very deadpan but Larry let out a real audible, quick laughing grunt.
58. OBSERVED. Watch President Obama the next time he comes down the staircase of Air Force One. He likes to trot down the steps quickly with his two hands/fists together like he's a galloping pony or something. (Sometimes he wiggles his fingers too.) He did it when he arrived in Spain for the NATO talks this week.
59. …He seems to be giddy-upping too, like Richard Engel (above).
60. Hanalie, dog in the neighborhood, is becoming BFF (best friend forever) with new kitty Bucky and is acting not so bossy. Owner Sally reports they eat and sleep and play together (Eat, Pray, Love?).
61. …At first Bucky was fascinated by Gidget (another housemate), the cockatoo, and wanted to eat her (for Thanksgiving?) but now realizes the bird is a family member and not a meal.
62. MORE ON PALIN. She said, "I believe so," when Barbara Walters asked her if she thought she could beat President Obama if she ran for president.
63. …She might be able to and she sure seems to be working toward it. (The interview is part of Walters's upcoming ABC special that airs on Dec. 9)
64. …WANT TO KNOW. Why doesn't Sarah Palin just do away with those glasses? She'd be sexier.
65. "DON'T TOUCH MY JUNK." That new catch phrase thanks to John Tyner of San Diego, who was about to board a flight to South Dakota for a hunting trip. He refused a body scan and went for the pat-down but told the TSA agent: "If you touch my junk I'll have you arrested" because he considered the body search a sexual assault.
66. …He wound up not taking the trip but what he said so caught on that even conservative columnist and TV pundit Charles Krauthammer used it in a column but stretched the meaning a bit: "Don't touch my junk" is the anthem of the modern man, the Tea Party patriot, the late-life libertarian, the mid-term election voter. Don't touch my junk, Obamacare - get out of my doctor's examining room ... Don't touch my junk, you airport security goon - my package belongs to no one but me."
67. …He went on and on, didn't he?
68. Anybody got a Four Loko (caffeinated, alcoholic energy drink)? I need a fast, hard buzz.
69. UH ... Poko Loko - Gene & Eunice, on Case Records, 1959.
70. I'm out.

rocci@roccifisch.com

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