My collective impressions of the new controls.

I just watched Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan on AMC.

Is the part when Spock slowly dies of radiation poisoning not one of the saddest moments in movie history?

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...or the one."

After reading The Da Vinci Code I can't help but look for hidden meanings and messages in objects I come across in my everyday life. For instance:

I just ate a McDonald's double-cheeseburger. What's with those Golden Arches? Dual arches that mirror each other to form a big 'M'. Hmmm…very interesting to Mary Magdalene fans out there. On every McDonalds sign you see the phrase "Over 99 Billion Served". Served? As in Conned? Like the Priory's perpetuation of the belief that powerful men in the early Christian church 'conned' the world by propagating lies that turned history against goddess worshipers in favor of Christianity? In the last two millennia over 99 Billion people have been conned? Is that what they're trying to tell us?

Eric Schlosser, the author of Fast Food Nation, has said that his research has found that world-wide, "the Golden Arches are now more widely recognized than the Christian cross." A coincidence or the goal of an ancient secret society?

All you need to do is look at this picture of Ronald McDonald. His name is 'Ronald', but did you ever get the feeling that Ronald may not be 100% male? Ronald, like the Mona Lisa, is clearly a blend of male and female, more dualism at work. He also wears the 'M' symbol over his heart in reverence. Ronald sits with his legs crossed in an 'X'. Remember from the book? The blade and the chalice guarding o'er Her gates. The blade symbol (^) and the chalice symbol (v) combine to form an 'X'. And Ronald is sitting on it! He's guarding the Holy Grail!! Ronald is telling us that The Holy Grail lies hidden at the McDonalds Corporation Headquarters in Oak Brook, IL!!!!

It's all so obvious!!!

Some of you readers out there live in that part of the country, go take a look and prove me right. ('Ronald McDonald' also spells: Mad Landlord Con)

Hey mon, eh?

MONTREAL (AFP) - An ambitious project has surfaced to make the sun-kissed Caribbean islands of Turks and Caicos the eleventh -- and warmest -- province of ice-bound Canada.

Peter Goldring, a Conservative member of parliament from the frigid plains of Alberta, has launched a bid to annex the small tropical archipelago between Haiti and the Bahamas -- which is now a British Crown colony.

His drive is gathering pace, backed up by a petition, a motion in Canada's House of Commons, a proposed parliamentary committee of friendship, an effort to lobby businessmen and a website evoking the joys of "a place in the sun."
(www.aplaceinthesun.ca).

The Turks and Caicos government requested a link-up with Canada in 1987, but a Canadian Foreign Ministry study turned down the idea.

Today, Goldring told AFP, things are different.

In January he met the archipelago's Chief Minister Michael Misick who, he said, was "very interested in discussing with Canada."

But there is still a long way to go.

First Britain needs to give the green light, for one of its final colonies to go its own way.

"It's a little bit like in 1949, when Newfoundland joined Canada," said Goldring.

So all you need to do is start a petition in order to do a land-grab?

Sweet!

I'm going to start a petition in support of my plan to annex the island of Martha's Vineyard for my own personal use. I always liked that place.

"It's a little bit like in 1949, when Newfoundland joined Canada," I say.

Cocaine. It’s not just for breakfast anymore.

MIAMI (Reuters) - A Florida warehouse employee noticed the can of orange juice didn't quite smell right but took a sip anyway.

He called the cops when his tongue went numb.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said on Thursday the 18-ounce (500-ml) can of juice from Jamaica contained liquid cocaine that would have sold for about $40,000 on the street.

It was probably bought at a Jamaican grocery store, emptied, injected with cocaine and packaged with a shipment of real fruit juice before being sent to Fort Lauderdale on a plane, agents said. The can bore a label reading "Grace Fruit Drink."

"It was a warehouse employee who found it. It smelled bad but he took a sip of it. It didn't taste very good and his tongue went numb," said Nina Pruneda, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

But they said they wanted to make sure no one was hurt by mistakenly drinking cocaine from a can. They asked anyone coming across a similar can to report it to their local police.

"It smelled bad but he took a sip of it." Are you kidding me?? I hope this guy never gets a job cleaning bathrooms.

First locusts, now this. Bring an umbrella if you go out tonight.

SAN DIEGO - As far as flying space rocks go, it's as close an encounter as mankind has ever had.

A 100-foot diameter asteroid will pass within 26,500 miles of Earth on Thursday evening, which means the asteroid will pass within the moon's orbit. This will be the closest-ever brush on record by a space rock, NASA astronomers said.

The asteroid's close flyby, first spied late Monday, poses no risk, NASA astronomers stressed.

"It's a guaranteed miss," astronomer Paul Chodas, of the near-Earth object office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said Wednesday.

The asteroid, 2004 FH, was expected to make its closest approach at 5:08 p.m. EST, streaking over the southern Atlantic Ocean. It should be visible through binoculars to stargazers across the southern hemisphere, as well as throughout Asia and Europe, said astronomer Steve Chesley, also of JPL.

Similarly sized asteroids are believed to come as close to Earth on average once every two years, but have always escaped detection.

"The important thing is not that it's happening, but that we detected it," Chesley said.

Astronomers have not ruled out that the asteroid and our planet could meet again sometime in the future. If the two were to collide, the asteroid likely would disintegrate in the atmosphere, Chesley said.

Happy St. Patrick's Day. Don't do anything stupid. The stereotype that all Irish people are drunks is just that. A stereotype.

Even if there is a shred of truth underneath the myth, it's still not something to be proud of.

Oh man, I've been having WAY too much fun with this site:

Click here.

Here's a picture of my future niece Maggie:

(Future means that first, technically, to call this kid my niece I would have to get married to the sister of Maggie's mother, and second, the kid has to be born. Odds are that the former part of that equation will end up being the latter event in the overall timeline.)

I will pray for the safety of the brave souls trapped in the Cicada Quarantine Zone.

AP WIRE - After 17 years of relative quiet, Mother Nature is bringing the noise. Periodical cicadas, a species of the grasshopper-like insects best known for the scratching, screeching "singing" of the males, will emerge this May, filling forests in more than a dozen states. Almost as abruptly as they arrive, they'll disappear underground for another 17 years.

This year, it's time for Brood X, the so-called "Big Brood," to surface. Its range stretches from Georgia, west through Tennessee and to isolated pockets of Missouri, north along the Ohio Valley and into Michigan, and east into New Jersey and New York.

"This is one of those years we kind of dread," said Paris Lambdin, professor of entomology and plant pathology at the University of Tennessee. "We had an emergence a couple years ago around Nashville, but nothing like what we expect this one will be."

No other periodical cicada covers so much ground. And with hundreds of them per acre in infested areas, the noise will be hard to miss.
"Out in the Midwest is where things get really hairy," Hoover said. "Missouri, Illinois, Indiana have combinations of 17-year-brooded individuals and 13-year-brooded individuals, and they can have overlap."

There's no question that the class of 2004 will be a nuisance. The cicadas will make plenty of noise, and adults are poor fliers that tend to bump into things.

"The females, once mated, will lay pockets of eggs along twigs that will cause structural weakening of those twigs," Hoover said.

"Eventually they may drop off and fall to the ground, the nymphs will drop off and fall to the soil, and that's where this species is for the next 17 years."

Damn. CNN has a story today that says after all is said and done Mel Gibson could personally rake in as much as $200 million off "The Passion of the Christ" (more like “The Profit Off the Christ”) which was produced and directed by Mad Max himself. Is it morally acceptable for a devout Catholic like Mel to get such a grandiose payday off of the suffering of your own God? I bet the Catholic Church will guilt him into a sizeable donation.

200 million dollars is a big chunk of change for a movie that was absolutely blasted by some critics. David Edelstein of MSN’s Slate magazine called it "A two-hour-and-six-minute snuff movie -- The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre". Ouch.

I haven’t seen it; I heard it’s very powerful. I'll probably wait until it comes out on DVD.

Don't you hate it when you call a co-worker an "anti-social lunatic" and they get mad at you?

I just don't get some people.

My dieffenbachia plant, Charlie, has just informed me that there is a tribe of pygmies habitating the dirt around the base of his trunk.

Does that strike anyone else as odd?

What? Tips? T-shirts? Recipes? ???

Click here.

I love it here, but living in Massachusetts sometimes drives me insane. Here's a perfect example:

This story is in today's Boston Herald.

Residents in one of the nation's most historic cities are in a flap over whether a homeowner should be allowed to continue flying his flag in front of his 222-year-old Salem, MA home.

The resident, Paul "Chip" Tuttle, said he simply wants Old Glory to grace his Federal Street house.

Problem is, his home is located in one of Salem's most prominent historic districts and his neighbors have complained to the Historical Commission that the flag is too big, too high and flying at an inappropriate angle.

"There is nothing in the guidelines that addresses the manner in which a flagpole can hang," Tuttle maintains.

But some members of the Historical Commission, which governs how homes in the town can be adorned, disagree.
"There is nothing that says we can't address the flagpole," said Louis Mangifesti, who sits on the seven-member board.

"We are totally for people putting up flags and we foster that, but the angle of the flag and the height placement is not appropriate," he said.

Mangifesti said a 90-degree angle and mounting above the first floor is preferable. Tuttle's flag is at a 45-degree angle and sits above the second floor.

Tuttle, however, brought several photographs to the commission meeting this week, showing other homes in the district where poles are mounted in a similar manner.

The Historical Commission is expected to vote on whether Tuttle will receive a certificate of appropriateness to fly his flag at its next meeting on March 17.

"So far we've flown an American flag, but we're contemplating a Jolly Roger," Tuttle said.

I say Tuttle should give the Salem Historical Commission the "inappropriate finger" for being totally out of control.

Now you need a "certificate of appropriateness" to fly the American flag in front of your own house?????

Only in Massachusetts.

Tomorrow the Red Sox play two split-squad exhibition games, the first has Tim Wakefield pitching against Boston College, and the later game has Curt Schilling taking on Northeastern University in the first start of his latest stint with the Red Sox.

How would you like to be a freshman baseball player at Northeastern who has to stand up at the plate and look down the barrel at the business-end of a 93 mph Curt Schilling fastball? Good luck getting any sleep tonight.

Did I mention that I know an award-winning Hollywood writer?

(Happy now, Dave?)

In other obviously less-important news, NASA scientists plan to make a "significant" announcement today about their ongoing mission on Mars. Speculation is that they will announce that they have found significant new evidence that Mars was at one time a wet and warm planet, capable of sustaining microscopic life. Also, in a story that will rock Major League Baseball to the core, the San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that federal investigators have received information confirming allegations that Barry Bonds did indeed receive steroids and human growth hormone from a Bay Area nutritional supplements lab implicated in a steroid-distribution ring. Investigators also were told that two New York Yankees, Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield, are among others that were given steroids, the newspaper reported.

But let's get back to my friend the famous Hollywood writer.

Back on February 21st Dave won a Writers Guild Award for "Outstanding Script for Television, Daytime Serial" for his work on All My Children.



I still don't know how I benefit from this.