Blog from the Future Past

Curse of the Irish

no snakes in Ireland

in famine they could eat them

instead of spoiled spuds

This may be a controversial opinion, but if St. Patrick hadn't rid the Emerald Isle of snakes around 500 BCE, there might have been plenty of them around to eat when the potato famine struck 1,300-years later.

Then why is he the patron saint of Ireland? Good question, and it all has to do with politics. Think corned-snake and cabbage.

In the near future, a lot of Major League Baseball players will suddenly be losing weight.

Thus Speaketh The Oracle

NEWS ANALYSIS: You gotta love it. Yesterday, CNN ran a piece, the core premise that Condoleeza Rice denied she would run for President in '08. Denials are just not interesting, guys. (Remember, "Hey, OJ... did you do it?")

What they really need to do is to ask the right question. As a reknowned expert on media fabrication of news that's not news, I suggest someone at CNN, maybe Larry King, ask Ms. Rice the following, "When you attend the Presidential BBQ's at the Crawford ranch, do you prefer the ribs, sausage or brisket?"

Larry could do this under the ruse of making her seem more human--a daunting task to begin with, but she'll probably take the bait. Then, regardless of her answer, you can make up any number of interesting tag lines:

• Rice craves boss man's meat
• Condie denies oral contact with Presidential sausage
• Bush porks Condy at Crawford Affair
• GWB stuffs Sec. of State with huge wiener
• Secretary Rice slashes Bush ribs

It doesn't matter if there's some sort of fluff piece to follow, just as long you get another ad-click opportunity on the website or get the rubes to sit through three-minutes worth of furniture ads.

And it's not dishonest at all. Caviar Emptied... duh...

ENTERTAINMENT NEWS ANALYSIS: Mel Gibson has re-released an edited, 'sanitized', version of The Passion of Christ. Most of the goriest footage has been exorcised from the original cut.

Why Mel would want to remove the most compelling scenes from his original tour de force is beyond me. Investors shouldn't expect profits similar in scope to the first time around, as the S & M Fundamentalists who made last year's release such a big smash will stay away in droves from this watered-down travesty. ( S & M Fundies consider the hey-day of crucifixion under the Roman Empire a high-water mark of their movement. )

Shame on you, Mel. After a display of bloodsport and bloodspurt that made even Brian DePalma gag and retch, you finally sold out in the end. Stay true to your art, Mel Gibson!

It's snowing again. I think this is 46 days in a row.

Last Friday I had to pretend I was a chaperone at the school dance*, so martinis were out. In an emergency, I moved Martini Day to Sunday. Boy, did that feel weird!

Recently, I bought a couple of new martini glasses. They're bigger, with a gold and green painted design around the base and stem.

The girls didn't like the new glasses, called them ugly. Point is, they're bigger. Now I can drink four while only making two, and the paint makes them much easier to find while focused on gin stupor.

Sure fooled them.

* [ At the dance, I noticed that the kids today are a lot like we were, only they can't dance and are much stupider. ]

Partied way too late on International Beheading Day. We celebrate at our house by everyone taking turns acting out Japanese ritual seppuku, which of course culminates in an unusually clean removal of the head. After that, the children sing the "No Head! No Head!" song (I love that...), while the adults go off for a traditional Western European Beheaded Saint Day feast of sweetbreads, headcheese and braised goat tongue, washed down with Bloody Mary's.

That's the great thing about having a multi-cultural household... you can mix and match, taking the best of both traditions.

I had way too many BM's, but I didn't embarrass myself as usual this year and I remembered everything.... or most of the parts that counted, anyway.