Petty to the end

If Bush could just quit crap like this, he would have a slight chance of leaving the White House with some "Bygones be Bygones" goodwill. But homey don't play that, apparently:

In December, President-elect Obama asked the White House if he and his family could move into Blair House — the White House’s guest house — a week early, so that his daughters Malia and Sasha could start school. The White House rebuffed them, saying the house was already booked for another guest. A White House source added that "Blair House was appalled" by the request.

After weeks of speculation, the mystery guest that trumps the President-elect and his family has finally been revealed. The White House offered the house to John Howard, the former Prime Minister of Australia who is set to receive a Medal of Freedom. Instead of arranging other accommodations for Howard's one-night stay, the Bush administration told the Obama family to stay in a hotel for two weeks. (Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who are also receiving the Medal of Freedom, opted to find other accommodations.)

Last night on MSNBC's "Countdown," Bloomberg journalist Margaret Carlson revealed that when the White House turned down Obama's request in early December, it had not yet even invited Howard to stay at the Blair House:

"I reported…on December 11 and 12 that there were no foreign dignitaries booked into Blair House during that period of time. … I have the feeling they asked him [Howard] to come and stay so that there might be some plausible reason for not letting the Obamas stay there."

She also pointed out that Blair House has "119 rooms with 35 bathrooms. Howard wouldn’t even have to share a sink with the Obamas."

Featuring Big Bald Nazi With Wrench!

During the aforementioned LEGO drought, I went ahead and signed up for the company's email newsletter, the first one of which I received yesterday. They had some sneak previews of new sets coming out. Oh mama:


On the one hand, I'm drooling like a fanboy over this. Out of the three Indiana Jones films (remember, there was just the three) the Flying Wing segment from the first film is a fan favorite and perfect for LEGO. They even include the fuel truck that leads to it's inevitable demise!

On the other hand, they did something that LEGO fans have been griping about for sometime now: Instead of designing a section with regular smaller pieces, they forge a brand new, gargantuan piece. In this case, the wings themselves.

Such large pieces drastically decreases the versatility of the set, especially with the camo colors. The wings could have been pulled off with smaller wing pieces of different colors and looked a lot better.

Oh well, I'm not paid the big bucks to design LEGO (would it were so). And it's not to say that I won't pick this up, but it will only happen if this set makes it as far as Tuesday Morning.

"The Aardvark asked for a dagger."

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

Where has all the LEGO gone?

I found myself wanting to pick up some small LEGO set over my extended New Year's break, so I went to Target. No good. They had a few of the larger sets, but nothing more than that. So Walmart was next. Nada at Walmart. Finally, I decided to bask in the glow of the Toys R Us selection. Only it was the same there as well.

That's when I started breaking out in the sweats.

Well, not really, but I have to admit it kinda freaked me out. What really made matters worse was when I got home and did some looking on the Amazon website. Nearly every set they had was (a) sold by a secondary retailer and (b) had their price inflated to three times larger or more.

I began to wonder if LEGO was pulling some sort of DeBeers crap here. All I knew was that I needed a LEGO fix and there were no dealers to be found!

The next day, I broke down and visited the Toys R Us and SuperTarget in Orange Park. There was a grand total of maybe five sets on the shelf at Target, but Toys R Us proved to be my salvation. Though I was really jonsing for the 7667, I settled for the brand new 8958 set, which is really a snazzy little vehicle (once you ditch big orange scoop that drags behind it).




So, all is well, and it should at least hold me until my next trip to Downtown Disney.

Roscoe Lee Browne Quote of the Month: January 2009

May I present Acrentropy's "Quote of the Month" Hall of Fame:

And so there you have it. For 2009, we will be looking at the work of Mr. Roscoe Lee Browne.

Mr. Browne is the oldest of the actors in our Hall of Fame, or rather was before he died two years ago. Like Keith David, Browne was known for his deep, resonant voice which could give James Earl Jones a run for his money. He did some voice overs for commercials (Tell me if this rings a bell: "Oooohhhhh, the power of cheese!") and he did voice over work for a number of films. It was one of these that was my first introduction to the man.

Yes, I'm speaking of course of the cinematic classic Logan's Run.

For those who haven't been blessed with the experience, this Sci-Fi tale is about a Utopian future where everyone gets put to death at age 30. Logan (Michael York) accidentally gets labeled as such years before his time, and he has to try to escape the city. Along the way, he encounters a robot named Box, who once harvested seafood to supply the city but has long ago malfunctioned and begun harvesting humans that happen to cross his path:

Box: Regular storage procedure. The same as the other food. The other food stopped coming. And they started.

Logan 5: What other food?

Box: Fish, and plankton. And sea greens, and protein from the sea. It's all here, ready. Fresh as harvest day. Fish and sea greens, plankton and protein from the sea. And then it stopped coming. And they came instead. So I store them here. I'm ready. And you're ready. It's my job. To freeze you!

Happy New Year!

I haven't a thousand words, so let's sum up the year with one picture:






Yes, I think that'll do.