Rocci Fisch

October 31, 2010

WHY SHOULD I CARE ABOUT CELINE DION?

…We know she had fraternal twin boys by C-section and they're okay and everything/everyone else is okay and Celine and husband/manager Rene Angelil are ecstatic.
…And dad Angelil cut the umbilical cords for both of the boys and it was "instant love," he said, dotingly.
…And it was an in vitro fertilization and she was admitted to the hospital early so she could be observed by doctors in case she went into premature labor, which she did.
…And you know they’ll all be on the covers of People, Us, OK! and God knows how many other mags and celebrity TV shows (Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood).
…All this "news" is TMI (too much information), if you ask me.
…Enough already!. Stop the celebrity news machine.
…I don't need to know about it all and "frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," as Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) said to Scarlett O'Hara (Vivian Leigh) in Gone With the Wind.
COMING: The iPhone from Verizon, the first of the year, they say. (It's been delayed more than once.) Thank God AT&T's four-year lockup on the contract with Apple will be broken and my carrier can get in on the deal.
…Many, including me, have wanted the iPhone but didn't want to switch to AT&T, whose service has a rep for dropped calls and other inconveniences. I'm a Verizon type-guy but realize they're all big companies that make too much money and rip everybody off. But it's good the wealth is being spread.
…Blonde Bombshell (new ongoing character) thinks there'll be a price war. Good, bring it on and get those prices down.
MOVIE: The Hereafter. The Clint Eastwood-directed, Matt Damon-acted movie that's about three intertwined (eventually) stories of people who have experiences or wonder about the afterlife. Damon is the focal point, playing a guy who has the psychic power of being able to talk with the dead but wants to give it up/retire from it because he wants to change his life. But it's not all that easy.
…Long film but interesting and thought-provoking.
…In the beginning there's a tsunami and the special effects are done extremely well, and believably. It reminded me of the one back in 2004 in the Indian Ocean which killed nearly 200,000 people; remember seeing the amateur video of the water rush? This one looked like that, especially when you see the wave coming ashore and flooding everything in sight.
…The rest of the film switches back and forth to the lives of the three main characters. It's directed in a typical Eastwood low-key way and doesn't get too into the whole psychic thing and offers no explanations. It's just about the people and their thoughts and how they react.
There's much more water on the moon than they thought. Millions and millions of gallons of water ice in the floor of a crater, enough to fill 1,500 Olympic-size swimming pools, were found as a result of the LCROSS lunar-impact probe about a year ago.
…This is important, NASA says, because astronauts could possibly "live off the land" and not have to transport heavy water on the missions to that big piece of cheese in the night sky.
…Would that be safe? Is it the same kind of H2O we have down here on Earth? I'd be a little afraid of that.
…Send Richard Branson (Virgin Atlantic Airways) up there to find out if it works, he seems to have a lot of disposable time. Give 'im something worthwhile to do.
CURIOUS . . . Why Fox News Sunday didn't have pundit Mara Liasson on last weekend as part of their roundtable discussion segment. Due to the hotness of Juan Williams's firing by NPR, who Liasson also works for (as national political reporter)? Too much controversy? Laying low? You decide.
…Dual roles. Reporters with opinions, a dangerous thing.
…Fox jumped to Williams's defense and awarded him with a $2 million a year contract. I hope that happens when/if I leave my job.
Bill Clinton's really been on the campaign trail for the Democrats for the midterm elections. He seems to be everywhere. But in many shots (still pix and video) he looks rather thin and tired. I think he needs to slow down.
…Nothing stops these politicians from talking. Blah, blah, blah.
I'm sick of hearing about Glee (Fox TV musical-comedy-drama TV show). Jane Lynch is everywhere you look; Corey Monteith on the cover of GQ magazine with his hands on the backsides of co-stars Dianna Agron and Leah Michele and people debating over its appropriateness.
…Glee this, Glee that. Glee on Saturday Night Live; so and so will guest-star on Glee. Get over it.
…The show's been a "phenom" but it won't last forever and if you ask me it's bordering on jumping the shark (losing momentum and spiraling downward). At least with me it is.
Singer Jessica Simpson has a line of "jeggings." That's a new one on me but apparently they've been around a while. An outgrowth of the skinny jeans fad, the name is a cross between blue jeans and leggings, hence "jeggings," but they're not actually denim, just colored to look like they are, at least that 's what I'm told by a friend of mine who's fashionable and in-the-know and wishes she had a pair.
…Can you get jiggy wit 'em?
…The young kids these days are all into skinny jeans and that look, it seems. Girls and guys are wearing them. They don't seem to like all that extra fabric of the standard jeans; the tight ones look cooler.
…They look so tight I wonder how people get 'em on and off.
…Me, I think I'm admittedly too old for the skinny jeans fad and wouldn't want my pants clinging to my legs all day just to look the part.
…I'd look absolutely ridiculous. I have a hard time enough getting into regular jeans.
OBSERVED. Christiane Amanpour's bangs are no longer straight down on her forehead. They have a sway to them over to the right and are not as much of a coverup. It's an improvement, I think - a softer look.
…I watch the Sunday talk shows not for the news but for fashion statements and trends among our beloved anchors.
MY FAVORTE SHOW CHARACTER. Shorty (Rossi) on TLC's Pit Boss. He's a little person who runs Shortywood, a Hollywood talent management company for little people, and Shorty's Rescue, a pit bull rescue group. He's no-nonsense and wears a fedora and smokes cigars a lot. Shorty and his crew "hit the streets of Los Angeles in their fight to overcome stereotypes - for themselves and the pit bulls they save," as it says on their Web page.
…It's fun watching Shorty and his cohorts (Ronald, Ashley and Sebastian) deal with everyday life just as everyone else does in real life. The series does not stoop to pandering just because they're little people.
That British woman who threw a cat in a dumpster pleaded guilty to a single charge of animal cruelty. Video footage of the incident went viral on the Internet and caused a firestorm around the world.
…The cat lived but there was so much reaction to the incident that guards had to be posted outside her home in England.
…Forty-five-year-old Mary Bale described what she did as a "split-second of misjudgment" that got completely out of control. She also stated that she was under a great deal of stress due to a gravely ill father.
…She was fined about $395 and ordered to pay costs ($1,800) and banned from keeping or owning any animals for the next five years.
…Poor kitty.
Mr. Big Stuff asked me if I was going to go to see "Proletariat ... er, I mean Secretariat." Ha Ha Ha.
A colleague of mine is really into Altoids and their old-fashioned tin boxes, which seem unique in a world of disposable and recyclable everything.
…Some people stack 'em up and line their desks with 'em. People don't want to throw the empty tins away.
…Anybody got an Altoid right now? I could use one, my breath is fowl.
Who cares about MSNBC's new slogan, Lean Forward? According to the cable network's president Phil Griffin "it captures the spirit of everything we do and everything we believe. It's about celebrating the best ideas, no matter where they come from; that tomorrow can, in fact, be better than today."
…Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
JUST ASKING . . . Does leaning left translate to "leaning forward"?
The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz (reports on the media) has left the paper (after 29 years) for the Internet and The Daily Beast, a two-year-old online news, opinion and aggregator site. He sees a lot of "energy and excitement in the Web world" but still "likes paper." He'll be the site's Washington bureau chief but still will be writing, reporting, blogging and tweeting.
…That's what you do for the Internet - everything.
Former 007 agent Pierce Brosnan was recently in Washington with his wife, Keely Shaye Smith, and was "spotted at Wolfgang Puck's The Source (restaurant)." A local gossip column "reported" that the "couple enjoyed tuna cones and pumpkin soup. She had lobster for her entrée and he had chicken."
…The things we live by.
…What in the H are tuna cones?
…I can't stand fancy schmancy.
GOOD QUOTE: "Only dead fish go with the flow," said by Sarah Palin in an interview with Entertainment Tonight's Mary Hart, who traveled to Alaska to interview her about her travelogue/nature eight-part "documentary" series, Sarah Palin's Alaska, on Discovery's TLC channel.
…Palin said those words - not the first time - in referring to apathy and it being easy for people to hold their heads down and just plod along in life - take the "easy path," to "go with the flow," as she similarly advised when she resigned her office of governor last year.
…Mary Hart ... The next Walter Cronkite?
LATEST NEWS. Hungry bears in northern Russia are digging up graves in cemeteries - and reportedly eating at least one body - after a super hot summer destroyed their natural food sources, reports AP.
…Just in time for Halloween.
LOOK-ALIKES? Rachel Maddow and ABC's political director Amy Walter. Walter looks like a younger version of the MSNBC anchor. She comes from The Hotline, National Journal's daily political news and analysis Web site.
…Maybe Walter should sub for Maddow sometime. You'd never know the difference.
I was impressed that the O'Jays and Cat Stevens were at the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert rally (Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear). They've got good bookers. Cat (Yusuf Islam) hasn't been seen performing in years; he looks good. And R&B vets the O'Jays - Wow! One of the best groups ever.
…There was a train theme: Ozzy Osbourne did Crazy Train, Cat Stevens did Peace Train and the O'Jays did Love Train. "People all over the world, join hands, start a love train ..."
…Another gospel/R&B vet, Mavis Staples, was there too. (She's got a new album - You Are Not Alone - produced by alt country rock group Wilco's Jeff Tweedy.) Mavis ended the show by performing her classic Staple Singers 1972 hit I'll Take You There, joined by everybody on the stage.
Hanalie, dog in the neighborhood, is getting used to her new house arrival Bucky, the light gray/whitish kitten that owner Sally has brought home to join the pet clan. Bucky likes to sit on the edge of the tub when Sally's taking a bath; stalk Gidget, the cockatoo and drink out of the same bowl as Hanalie. So it sounds like it's a peaceful co-existence.
…Hanalie is now on thyroid medicine, she's getting older, but she's doing just fine.
Hoda Kotbe, the NBC talk show co-host of the fourth hour of the Today show (Kathie Lee and Hoda) has a book out called "Hoda: How I Survived War Zones, Bad Hair, Cancer and Kathie Lee". In the book she says that she found out about her breast cancer and her husband's infidelity at the same time, "My broken breast was located directly over my broken heart."
…Awwww.
…The Today show recently sat George Clooney down at the anchor desk in place of Matt Lauer (who was sitting off to the side on the edge of a set wall). Meredith Vieira introduced him and said, "I knew if I lived long enough my dreams would come true and they have." Lauer laughed and so did Al Roker. They all had fun with their little prank just before the commercial break.
…Clooney was interviewed by Ann (Curry) in Sudan (she stalked him there) about his work for peace in the war-torn country.
…What, does the Today show want to make Clooney an anchor? He looked the part. Or are they getting ready for his run for the presidency? Is that on the docket too for the actor? What can't he do?
... UH ... Do I Do - Stevie Wonder, on Tamla Records, 1982, from his Original Musiquarium 1 album.

rocci@roccifisch.com

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