Now, I don't know a thing about sports. And I certainly don't know anything at all about football or soccer. So I'm completely amazed that a guy who wasn't scoring in his last team has just signed a contract for a quarter of a billion bucks. What's even more amazing is that the guy is referred to as a sex symbol. I kid you not. The TV anchors say, "the superstar and sex symbol" - I just heard one right now.
A sex symbol? He spends more on manicures that I - and I go for a manicure every week!
So it seems to me that the lesson in this is, have a really really good agent.
This weekend, however, my mind is focused on one thing and one thing only - you guessed it. I was visiting Obi's Sister who's anticipating Jack Bauer's return, and, as she puts it,
Even the obscene amount of money offered to pseudo-royal Beckham cannot tarnish my anticipation. After all, if Jack really wanted Beck's money, all he'd have to do is show up and take it. Like candy from a baby. And he wouldn't even need a hacksaw.
NY Times delivery update: For the first time since I started assertively asking (i.e., stopped paying) the NYT to discontinue weekend delivery, the paper was not on the driveway this morning. Did they finally stop? The real test comes tomorrow. One time they didn't deliver early on Saturday but they delivered it later. If it's not on the driveay by then, it must mean they stopped.
------------------------------------
Via Pamela, not a sex symbol but a very sexy performer: Charles Aznavour. Some day I'll post about the time I saw him on stage, but for now, hear him sing She What a fabulous guy.
After two days away from political blogging, I'm still not in political news mode, so there.
Being the only female in the house I'm outvoted when it comes to TV selections, so I've watched a lot of Discovery Channel stuff over time.
I love the Discovery Channel guys.
My first pick is my fantasy cab ride, The Cash Cab. The Cash Cab's the only game show I can stand. There's this guy named Ben who drives a New York city taxi and he asks you trivia questions. If you get the questions right he gives you money. If you don't, you still get a free cab ride: A win-win situation.
I've been taking cabs in NYC for over 25 years and one can only dream of finding a 1. nice American cab driver 2. who speaks English 3. knows where he's going 4. and doesn't drive like he's in the throes of demonic posession. Making $500 after answering a few questions would only be the icing on the cake. The Cash Cab is on at 5PM while I plan and make dinner, at the same time as Larry Kudlow's program on CNBC, which comes to think of it, has also made me a little money.
The Dirty Jobs marathon was playing on Christmas Eve while I was cooking. Mike, the show's host, has achieved fame and fortune by finding the grossest, messiest jobs around and building a TV program about them. All the jobs require a great deal of physical extertion. Most of the jobs are done by men, with a few exceptions, such as the lady that shucks oysters and the Army maintenance engineer. Some of the jobs - such as silkscreening - require great skill and training, and others are simply disgusting, but Mike's there, showing us that there is great pride in doing a job well, and that these jobs are indispensable to the functioning of our society:
But you'll walk away from Dirty Jobs with more than just a glimpse into unfamiliar occupational duties - serving slop to pigs, collecting sperm from stallions and removing bones from fish, for example. If you're like us, you'll also gain a new understanding and appreciation for all the often-unpleasant functions someone is shouldering to make your everyday life easier, safer - and often cleaner.
Mike's nice-looking and seems like a real nice guy but I hope he gets good and clean before he heads home after he's done. You don't want him bringing that stuff into your house.
I wasn't sure whether to include Man vs. Wild on this post, because I think the premise is crazy. So I (F) discussed with my son (S), and the conversation went like this,
F: It's crazy. S: It's not! F: I've watched the program and the guy's crazy. S: He's not crazy. He's cool. F: OK, I'll look up the program on the website. What's the guy's name? S: Bear. F: The guy's named Bear? S: That's his real name. Bear Grylls. F: That explains a number of things. S: Like what? F: Like why he has a job that requires him to be dewormed after he's done in the jungle. S (Patiently explaining to the obviously clueless mother): It's called surviving, Mom. The idea is to go to the jungle and survive. F: My idea would be to go to Club Med in Cancun and have a great time. S: He's not going to do that - he was Special Ops in the British Army, and did a program on the French Foreign Legion. And he can fish with his bare hands. F: That, too? S: Oh yeah, he's cool. F; You're right. I'll include him in the post.
But my favorites are Adam and Jamie of Mythbusters, which yesterday had a marathon while I was cooking. (Do I see a pattern here?) Adam and Jamie do actual science experiments while having a great deal of fun (they do get to blow up a lot of stuff), and their crew are definitely cool. However, The Husband, who worked as a scientist in a lab, complains about their lack of safety measures, especially when it comes to flammable materials.
I'm sure I'm not the only Mythbusters fan out there since last Friday I nearly started an altercation at the Barnes and Noble at Marketfair. I was looking for this book and for a last-minute gift when I saw a lady go by carrying a copy of MythBusters: Don't Try This at Home. I was standing at the Information desk while the clerk looked up some information for me, and I asked her where the book was. She said she'd go and get it for me while I picked up the Che book.
She was back before I got back to the Information desk, and waiving the book in the air said, "Mythbusters book!" Four people raised their hands trying to grab at the book while the clerk fought them off.
She managed to tell them where the book was, and as I headed to the register with the copy she'd found me, I saw two people getting in a tug of war over the one copy left at the display.
As I'm writing this post American Chopper's Christmas special's playing. I haven't watched American Chopper yet. No time like the present - they're making Santa a motorcycle.
-----------------------------------------
Not related to the Discovery Channel, but cool, via Maria,
-----------------------------------------
Here's more stuff from the Discovery Channel guys,
As it turns out, Alvaro had an epiphany because of Che's image hanging on a wall (page 2):
A few years later, I spent a semester studying at an American university. Che Guevara made a new attempt to seduce me. This time, my friends were mostly politically active Puerto Ricans who wanted their land to be independent.
It never ceases to amuse me how many independentistas come to the USA for college. But I digress.
One of them hung a poster of Che Guevara on his wall and, next to it, a picture of "Comrade Gonzalo", the genocidal leader of Shinning Path, Peru's Maoist organization.
And that's another thing: the rich Marxists. When I was at the University of Puerto Rico, one of the most Marxist guys around drove a convertible Jaguar. Now, when you realize that a Jaguar in Puerto Rico at that time cost twice what it cost in the continental USA, you really appreciate the meaning of the word irony. Alvaro continues
As I came into the room one afternoon and this couple [Che and "Comrade Gonzalo"] faced me from the wall, I was paralyzed. It suddenly downed on me why my South American friend from boarding school had never been quite able to persuade me to take up Che.
There it was, pure and simple: just like Abimael Guzman, Che was the negation of what I most seemed to long for in this complicated word - freedom and peace. I must have vaguely sensed this at school, but now, for the first time, I was able to fully grasp a precious truth: one should never be confused by the many variations of that species: the tyrant. Stalinist Che Guevara and Maoist Abimael Guzman belonged to different camps and represented contrasting attitudes to life - the former being the quintessential pinup, the latter a bizarre recluse - but what they had in common, their lust for totalitarian power, was much more important than their differences.
I had experienced firsthand Shining Path's campaign of terror against the very poor peasants in whose name it purported to act. Like millions of Peruvians, I had personally been affected in different ways by this unlikely reincarnation of Cambodia's Pol Pot in the middle of the Andes. Seeing Che Guevara next to Guzman on a chic campus wall brought to light the ugly truth about the Argentine hero of the Cuban Revolution, but, more importantly, it inspired the poignant realization that all those prepared to use force to take life and property from their fellow men are soul mates whatever the ideological or moral subterfuge used to conceal their real motives. "Really, you should rip that off. You have no idea," I said to my friend, and I left the room quite disturbed.
Many years later, when I had the chance to encounter numerous other disguises for tyranny, some on the left but others on the right, I focused on that image from university as the starting point of a larger reflection. The conclusion I reached continues to haunt me today: there are myriad forms of oppression, some much more subtle than others, sometimes adorned with the theme of social justice and at other times obscured by the language of security, and recognizing and denouncing the deceitful psychological mechanisms with which the enemies of liberty attempt to bamboozle us into voluntary servitude is one of the urgent tasks of our times.
Fausta was born and raised in Santurce, Puerto Rico and is a long-term resident of Princeton, New Jersey. She discusses New Jersey, taxation, current events, and how news are reported in the French and Spanish-language media at Fausta's Blog.
Fausta's blog
