Paging Canute.

Vlad Putin is planning to micro-manage the weather in St. Petersburg, seeding the clouds with dry ice so that it'll rain before they get to the city in order to ensure dry weather for his summit and the celebration of the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg. Doesn't seem quite sporting, somehow. [Via Drudge.]

Not earth-shattering, just interesting.

What I don't want to see covered on the news.

Reality TV (Survivor, American Idol, The Bachelor, blah blah f'n blah.) If I cared I would watch it. The line between reality and tv is blurry enough without acting like this crap matters.

Professional gravytraining.

Angela pointed me to this bit of Clintonia in the NY Post gossip section (5/22/03 edition):

With opening day less than two years away, officials at the Clinton Presidential Library Foundation are putting up so-called "Bill" boards along major highways leading to Little Rock, Ark., as well as in Memphis, Tenn., where foundation director Skip Rutherford is involved in partnership talks with Graceland, The Hill newspaper reports. Rutherford's theory is that anyone interested in touring The King's mansion will want to drive 140 miles south to learn more about Clinton because "Elvis was the president's musical hero," he explains. The Clinton Library plans to stage a special preview exhibit of Clinton's collection of Presley records, scheduled for later this year at Little Rock's Cox Creative Center. "He had records, memorabilia, all kinds of things," Rutherford says. "Clinton was 'Elvis.' That's what the press nicknamed him. I think there's a natural linkage."

The only natural linkage between those guys is an unnatural love of porkrinds. Spare me.

Nitpickery.

Even the great James Lileks is not immune to inadvertent transpositions:

Recall that classic line from the classic Bogey movie “The Maltese Falcon,” spoken classically by Bogie to Elijah Wood: the cheaper the gunsel, the gaudier the patter.

Of course that would be Elisha Cook, Jr., not Elijah Wood. The mental image of Bogart exchanging hardboiled cracks with a hobbit is hilarious, though.

Those sophisticated Europeans.

Via Psycho Muse on Museblog, this Hollywood Reporter account of the swanky goings-on at Cannes:

Guests were waiting in a line to allow VIPs to go up the red carpet for the opening of Francois Ozon's "Swimming Pool." As they shuffled along, waiting their turn to climb the stairs, a prominent financier and another colleague felt something like rain on their legs. Looking down, they saw that a well-dressed woman in front of them was urinating on the carpet, oblivious of those around her. Said the financier, "I skipped the film and went home to change and wash my legs." The offender continued on into the cinema.

(You people have no idea how much self-control was required not to make the obvious pun on 'European' here.)

Hey.

I republished my archives this morning, and they're kinda half-assed working. Neat.

Obligatory Mets content.

As of Friday, Piazza's out with a nearly-torn groin muscle (cringing as I type that), probably for a couple of months. I delayed bothering to post about it because the season started out so pissy I'm already well beyond wailing and gnashing of teeth. If Piazza can't catch anymore (and I think that's a possibility that deserves some serious consideration), I'd like to see him traded to the AL as a DH, but the injury and his impending 5/10 status makes that a real hard sell. So it looks like we're stuck with an aging, injury-hobbled former superstar and a collection of assorted stiffs. Tom Glavine's probably about ready to call the Braves with a heartfelt mea culpa right about now.

And that's about all I've got to say about that. Sidelining Piazza seems to have relieved whatever pressure the team was feeling and they've been playing looser (at least for the past couple of games.) Time to kick back with a cold one and see how this develops.

Well, that came out of nowhere.

Ari Fleischer resigned. He'll be gone come July, according to the AP. Now waiting for the follow-up scandal.

[Link via LGF.]

All I needed to know about Janeane Garofalo.

From an interview in The Progressive :

Q: Do you think it's possible to have a liberal media network?

Garofalo: It is possible. What's not possible is to penetrate the wall of opposition. The myth is it can't work. Phil Donahue was working, but MSNBC took it off for their own rightwing agenda. [emphasis mine--K]

The point of Donahue being cancelled was that he wasn't working. His ratings, which were measured by the same tools they use to measure every other show on television, were abysmal, therefore they took him off the air. The fact that Garofalo needs to explain the workings of the market to herself with a right-wing conspiracy theory is just pathetic.

[Interview link via Andrea Harris on Spleenville.]