Riddle Me This, Jishman

How long until Buddy Cianci is elected in Rhode Island again?
(Click here for the story)

Speedskater Apollo Anton Ohno won Dancing with the Stars last night. I will withhold all comments about it rotting your brain, feeling dumber after watching it (which I am proud to say I have never done), and all reality TV making me want to discover some sort of addiction.

None the less, congratulations to Ohno.

I figured we can all use a little humor during the work day… and therefore, when my aunt sent me this forwarded email, after laughing very heartily, I decided to share it with everyone.

There is a factory in Northern Minnesota which makes the Tickle Me Elmo toys. The toy laughs when you tickle it under the arms. Well, Lena is hired at The Tickle Me Elmo factory and she reports for her first day promptly at 8:00 AM.

The next day at 8:45 AM there is a knock at the Personnel Manager’s door. The foreman throws open the door and begins to rant about the new employee. He complains that she is incredibly slow and the whole line is backing up, putting the entire production line behind schedule. The Personnel Manager decides he should see this for himself, so the 2 men march down to the factory floor.

When they get there the line is so backed up that there are Tickle Me Elmos all over the factory floor and they’re really beginning to pile up. At the end of the line stands Lena surrounded by mountains of Tickle Me Elmos. She has a roll of plush red fabric and a huge bag of small marbles. The 2 men watch in amazement as she cuts a little piece of fabric, wraps it around two marbles and begins to carefully sew the little package between Elmo’s legs. The Personnel Manager bursts into laughter.

After several minutes of hysterics he pulls himself together and approaches Lena. “I’m sorry,” he says to her, barely able to keep a straight face, “but I think you misunderstood the instructions I gave you yesterday…”

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For those of you who I haven’t let know yet, as of last night, Jessica and I are engaged.

Certainly if we know you, we will call you to spread the “love”. If we don’t know you….well….then, in the words of Obi-Wan Kenobi, “this is not the post you’re looking for.”

Jason Giambi, it’s time you met the Salem Witch Trials. “If you sink and drown, you are not a witch! If you float and live, you are a witch and will be executed anyway!” Talk about your no win situations… and that is where Jason Giambi finds himself tonight.

I have to start out by saying that I am not a Jason Giambi fan. I am a Yankee fan and by association, have found myself rooting for Jason Giambi to do well in order for the Yankees to win. They haven’t won much lately so there isn’t much to cheer about, but I digress. My statement is that this isn’t a defense of Jason Giambi as much as it is a clarification from a fans singular point of view of what I believe has transpired over the past two days.

Here is what I just read at ESPN.com (click here for the whole Story):

NEW YORK — The baseball commissioner’s office intends to investigate reported remarks by Yankees slugger Jason Giambi that the sport should apologize for use of performance-enhancing drugs and the Yankees star’s comment that he was “wrong for doing that stuff.”

What?! Exactly!

What could Jason Giambi have possibly said that has the commissioner’s office up in arms? This is what he said in the USA Today, as reported by ESPN earlier today (click here for the whole story)

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Jishman commented about the state of television a few weeks ago. I was about to comment on the state of television about the same time and refrained because Jish had started the dialogue. Today, I am back to take a look at what television might look like next year.

Here is ABC’s fall schedule: (click here)

It is quite possible that I may never watch ABC at all, except for when LOST comes back in January.

Here is NBC’s fall schedule: (click here)

It’s good that they have Sunday Night Football, otherwise, Thursday night from 8:00-10:00 is all my TiVo will have to record. I will give Heroes a chance this summer, having missed the boat on this show, if I don’t get caught up by September, why start late?… it’s an extremely Reality show based schedule… an, almost forgot, didn’t ER end like three season agao?

Here is CBS’ fall schedule: (click here)

They lock up Monday night…. The Unit on Tuesday…. Wednesday looks weak… say what you will about Suvivor but with Without A Trace about to KO ER for good… Thursday looks very, very competitive… and Numb3rs is a lock…..

CBS is going with what works and it’s adding new shows around proven winners… BTW, great to see HIMYM back at 8:00pm on Mondays….

And we’ll be back with an update when Fox announces their schedule… My thoughts are that some of the networks are shooting themselves in the foot.

What are your thoughts on the network schedules?

ABC is going to have a sitcom based on the Geico caveman commercials. I kid you not.

I feel like I should say more, but I really can’t think of anything else to say. I’m shaking my head in disbelief. This might just be the end of network TV as we know it. I would, however, kill to have been in the pitch meeting.

It just keeps getting better and better. Ricky Williams fails yet another drug test. Honestly, if he keeps this up, he might make the DotW Hall of Shame.

I love how this starts:

Former NFL rushing champion Ricky Williams tested positive again for marijuana last month, delaying his return to the league until at least September…

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that Mayor Adrian Fenty’s new education plan for Washington, DC was copied, almost word for word, from the educational plan of Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s school district in North Carolina.

Mayor Adiran M. Fenty’s administration copied significant portions of its education strategy verbatim from a plan developed by a North Carolina school system, even as the mayor seeks to show he has the vision and expertise to restructure governance of the District’s troubled public schools.

Today, the Washington Post has identified the “Whistle Blower” how realized what the Mayor and his advisers had done.

This, of course, has caused Mayor Fenty to apologize for the mistake and emphasized that it should not have happed.

My point in bringing this up is not to talk politics here, because we do not do that, but to point out the major problem that plagiarism has become in American society. How are we supposed to teach our kids/students that copying other people’s work is not acceptable when it happens every day at the highest levels of government?

The advent of Wikipedia and other internet sources, while tremendously useful for information gathering, seem to encourage students to cheat in a way they believe is okay. It makes me wonder whether our culture of Napster and file sharing on the internet is leading to an erosion of ethics that is now surfacing in our nation’s leadership.

Just my 2 cents.

And so, the first year of business school is done for me. Congrats to all who have finished theirs too. (Yes, Tamar, that means you. Lawyers are people too.)

I thought this would be a great work day diversion for everyone.

The following is from an email my parents sent me this morning:

Little Tony was staying with his grandmother for a few days. He’d been playing outside with the other kids for a while when he came into the house and asked her, “Grandma, what is that called when two people are sleeping in the same room and one is on top of the other?”

She was a little taken aback, but decided to tell him the truth. “It’s called sexual intercourse, darling.”

Little Tony just said, “Oh, OK” and went back outside to talk and play with the other kids.

If you want to know the rest of the story, click the more button.

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This past weekend, I cleaned out the garage again! It is useable space again and my question/poll/contest:

How long until I declare my garage a complete disaster again?!

(must give exact date)

Looks like there are 48 episodes of Lost left….

“Lost” executive producers/showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, who have been vocal about setting up an endgame for the show, have signed on to stay for the remainder of the series’ run. Their separate new eight-figure deals with “Lost” producer ABC TV Studio include their services on the show as well as multiyear development pacts set to kick in when “Lost” bows out during the 2009-10 season.

“Due to the unique nature of ‘Lost,’ we knew it would require an end date to keep the integrity and strength of the show consistent throughout and to give the audience the payoff they deserve,” ABC Entertainment president Stephen McPherson said.

I am guessing they will run sixteen strong episodes from February through May… although that plan wasn’t laid out in the article, it makes the most sense…..

Thoughts on the announcement?

Carl Pavano Injured….no one in Yankee nation surprised (except for Iago, the Phoenix who responded, “I’m molting from surprise”).

After reading Sujal’s post, over at Fatmixx, about Free Comic Book Day, it started me thinking about my comic book reading over the years. As many people from my present and past can attest, I’ve kinda been a “dreamer” all my life. I enjoyed Transformers and He-Man as a kid, and still watch Sci-Fi/Fantasy and read comic books to this day. And every year, when Free Comic Book Day rolls around, I tend think to myself about all the great comic books I’ve read over the years.

Thus, here is my list:
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