August 2008 Archives

I am already on record supporting Cuban as the new owner of the Cubs, even though baseball bores me, and I haven't watched a baseball game in Chicago since 2005.

[Las Vegas Showgirls at Wrigley Field]

Think of it: Mark Cuban as the Chicago Cubs’ owner, bonding with the Bleacher Bums at Wrigley Field, splurging for rounds of Old Style beer and screaming at umpires. The concept is almost Veeckian, as if Bill Veeck, the populist former owner of the Browns, the Indians and the White Sox, had had zillions of dollars.

Buying the Cubs is the latest project for Cuban, the owner of the N.B.A.’s Dallas Mavericks, but he is not alone in the expensive quest. Four other individuals and groups have given the debt-laden Tribune Company nonbinding offers of at least $1 billion for the team, its stake in Comcast SportsNet Chicago, and 92-year-old Wrigley Field.

Cuban is reported to be the top bidder, at nearly $1.3 billion

[From Cuban Wants Cubs, but Will Baseball Want Him? - NYTimes.com]

Richard Sandomir of the NYT keeps harping on the dollar amount of fines Cuban has gotten from the NBA, but there is a clear pattern of decline there, and Cuban has been less publicly inflammatory in recent years. I follow the NBA very closely, and Cuban has been a boon for the Dallas Mavs. The Cubs, and Chicago, would be well served to have an owner as activist as Mark Cuban.

• Sadly, No! » Even Worseness: The Even-Worsening
  Amy Chozick starts a thread: Is Obama too skinny to be president? 15-Jul-08 06:04 pm Does anyone out there think Barack Obama is too thin to be president? Anyone having a hard time relating to him and his “no excess body fat”? Please let me know. Thanks! A reply is posted: Re: Is Obama too skinny to be president? 15-Jul-08 10:21 pm Yes I think He is to skinny to be President.Hillary has a potbelly and chuckybutt I’d of Voted for Her.I won’t vote for any beanpole guy. Amy responds: Re: Is Obama too skinny to be president? 16-Jul-08 09:12 am Love your response and your username (onlinebeerbellygirl). Would you mind shooting me an email so I can ask you a few more quesitons? My email is [redacted] Thanks so much! -Amy
  (tags: Corporate_Media WSJ Murdoch Obama)

Tony Clifton may well be the rudest, crudest, most musically talentless lounge lizard ever to stalk a stage. But for those of a certain age and/or sensibility, he is an entertainer nonpareil.

As part of a national tour, his performing prowess will be showcased starting Thursday at the Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division. Accompanied by the Katrina Kiss My Ass Orchestra, the bellicose balladeer will croon from a vast repertoire of Sinatra, Lynyrd Skynyrd and even Led Zeppelin to raise funds for Gulf Coast artists who were hit by the hurricane.

"This is an amazing, amazing showman," says Clifton's longtime pal Dennis Hof, who owns the Moonlite BunnyRanch brothel in Carson City, Nev., where Clifton is said to be a frequent guest and winter boarder. "And he's the last of his kind."

Hof met Clifton a few decades back, when the late hooker-loving comedian Andy Kaufman would swing by the cathouse (which then bore a different name) with his Chicago-born friend Bob Zmuda, who now runs the charity Comic Relief.

In those "crazy" times, Hof says, Andy wasn't always himself.

"I remember one time, Andy partied with 18 girls in two days," he remembers. "And sometimes it was Tony."

[Click to read more of Kaufman's alter ego Tony Clifton is all trick and no treat :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Entertainment]

• Call Me Fishmeal.: “The Mojave Experiment:” Bad Science, Bad Marketing
  <em>Microsoft has managed to prove that if you have a friendly expert on a controlled machine (with Vista pre-installed) showing a carefully selected subset of Vista features to an ignorant XP user for a few minutes, the XP user will often say he finds Vista acceptable. Wow.

  This so-called experiment of Microsoft’s is an insult to science, and to our intelligence. And I am dying to see the out-takes from their shoot. I mean, how many people do you suppose like being told, “Hey, this giant, unpopular monopolistic software company just made an ass out of you! Ha ha! Our leading scienticians just PROVED that you LOVE VISTA and WANT TO MARRY IT. You are TOTALLY GAY for Vista! Haaaaaaa HAAAAAAA!”</em>

  
  
  (tags: Microsoft Windows_sucks Advertising)
  
  
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  Delicious.com Relaunches with 1,000-Character Notes Fields | 43 Folders
  
  
  New Delicious.com page, yayy. And double yayy for longer notes field. The question will be whether my daily links post will accommodate the longer field. Probably, but I'm rambling on here to test the limits. Probably my main complaint with the delicious service was the short notes field - I use delicious as a blog post builder for posts that don't quite merit a full entry, but that I still want to keep track of. I still have nearly 600 characters left, and I doubt I'll use them all in any case. Thanks, Yahoo!
  
  
  (tags: del.icio.us blogging)