Music: "White Lines"

George W. Bush performing updated version of "White Lines".

TV: Singers In Series

Name these singers who played recurring characters on TV dramas or sitcoms.

1. This head of a musical dynasty played Capt. Calvin Spalding on "M*A*S*H".
   
2. This chap appears as the town troubadour on "Gilmore Girls". (I think he only sings, so this doesn't really count.)
   
3. This rock chick was Leather Tuscadero on "Happy Days".
   
4. This '80s singer thought it was hip to be seen on "One Tree Hill". That's news to me.
   
5. This '80s Scottish singer says she could be happy appearing on "EastEnders".
   
6. Nickelodeon's "The Adventures Of Pete & Pete" had a lot of rock & roll guest stars (Debbie Harry, Gordon Gano, Juliana Hatfield, Kate Pierson, Michael Stipe), and this punk godfather played someone's father in two episodes.
   

Cryptic Football Players

Can you guess these American Football players from the cryptic clues?

1. Sketched a light wind.
   
2. Sticky liquid from a rabbit hole.
   
3. Chauffeur for Trump.
   
4. One who conceals a deceased talk show host in his hand.
   
5. Big room for Italian poet.
   
6. Arrow-maker from English city.
   
7. German dark beer.
   

And one very cryptic player:

• July through November starters meet male Running Back.
  

Sports: Appropriate Names

Raiders' Defensive Back Stanford Routt. Pity he went to college in Houston instead of Stanford. And he doesn't run routes. But I'm sure he's been involved in some one-sided games.

Movies: William Fichtner

Pity poor William Fichtner. Usually cast as the creepy cop, the sleazy husband or the violent co-worker. Now he's the (probably) evil Sheriff on ABC's "Invasion". (Show seems okay - could do with more main characters.) How does it feel when your agent tells you, "Sorry, Bill, but they don't want you for the hero. They think you'd make the perfect baddie."

TV: Pot Pourri

• Is there any better feeling than when "The Daily Show" begins with today's date, so you know it's not a repeat?
  
• What's up with the sound of the theme music when "The Daily Show" comes back from a commercial break? Is it "phasing" or "flanging"? I'm not the only one who noticed this.
  
• "The Amazing Race: Family Edition" looks pretty good so far. Amish buggy accident! Woman who said Pennsylvania "might be a state"! Little girl calling her older brother a dork! Edith Bunker dropping the clue, then having a meltdown!
  
• Norm Chad is supposed to be the funny one on ESPN's World Series Of Poker, but Lon McEachern had the best line tonight. When the camera showed Chris Grigorian's girlfriend cheering him on, Lon said she was "leading the Grigorian chant".
  

TV: Dylan On PBS

• I watched the first part of the Dylan documentary on PBS. Favourite quote: "Bob Dylan was a bastard in the second half." (Unhappy English fan, talking about the "electric" part of Dylan's concert.)
  
• For commercial-free TV, there sure are a lot of commercials on PBS.
  
• Worth it for the clips of Odetta and John Jacob Niles. Go to his page to hear his "bone chilling soprano voice". Freaky!
  
• Part 2 tomorrow unfortunately coincides with the season premiere of "The Amazing Race". I'll be pulling for the Bransen girls.
  

Movie Quiz: Names

In which movies do you find these names? They're not necessarily the names of characters. (The year the movie was released is given in parentheses.)

1. Keyser Soze (1995)
   
2. Dapper Dan (2000)
   
3. Bingo Crepuscule (2004)
   
4. Trudy Kockenlocker (1944)
   
5. Citizen Dick (1992)
   

Cookies: Morelianas

Is there a more delicious bilingual cookie than Nabisco's Morelianas? The box says "Sandwich Cookies - Galletas Sandwich" and "Orange Flavor - Sabor Naranja". They're made in Mexico, then shipped to the US. Part of a trend of foods targeted at the Hispanic market. Named after a town in Mexico, they seem to be quite different from the original Morelianas - "flat caramel-like disks of burnt milk and sugar"

Words: Fr-

Words that start with "fr-".

• Frass: (noun) Insect excrement.
  
• Fribbler: (noun) A trifler. "One who professes rapture for the woman, and dreads her consent."
  
• Froward: (adjective) Stubbornly contrary, obstinate.
  
• Fraktur: A Germanic typeface.
  
• Frist: (verb) to sell stock from a "blind" trust before it takes a nose-dive (stock from your family's company).
  

Appropriate Names: Movies

Stunt man Stuart Fell - as mentioned by Michael Palin on the commentary track for "Ripping Yarns". There is also a stunt man called Chester Tripp

Facial Hair

You know who'd look good with a chin puff (like the Chef Sauce chef)? Joe Lieberman.

Lyrics Quiz: Mystery Theme

• 'Steada treated - We get tricked! 'Steada kisses - We get kicked!
  
• Like the mountains in springtime. Like a walk in the rain. Like a storm in the desert. Like a sleepy blue ocean.
  
• She goes for her medical. She’s passed, it’s a miracle. She’s up over the moon. She whistles nonsense tunes.
  
• Heading out this morning into the sun, riding on the diamond waves, little darlin' one.
  
• They say that all is fair in love and war, and child, believe it. When mama stayed in Saint Tropez, she had a fall or two.
  
• Annie, are you okay? Are you okay, Annie?
  
• I tell myself too many times, Why don't you ever learn to keep your big mouth shut? That's why it hurts so bad to hear the words tThat keep on falling from your mouth.
  

Advertising: Budweiser

That August Busch IV - what a stiff. Is he really the best person for their TV commercials?

He "has a reputation as a party boy" - could have fooled me. Maybe they should show him whooping it up like a drunken frat boy. (Other choice quote: ""Wall Street doesn't know how bright he is.")

Apparently, the Busch family has supported the Demmy-crats ever since FDR repealed Prohibition.

That still doesn't change the fact that so many people compare Bud unfavourably to urine.

Song List: Borrowed Lyrics

Songs that borrow from other songs. It can be a straight quote, with proper attribution, like Prince in "The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker":

"Oh, my favorite song" she said.
And it was Joni singing "Help me I think I'm falling".

It can be the ironic use of pop lyrics, like The Brunettes quoting the Spice Girls in "Leonard Says":

Please don't scare me like that ever again.
I won't be an audience for your self-aggression.
And if you wanna be my lover,
You've gotta get with my friends.

It can be a slight variation on the original, like The Silent League borrowing a melody from George Michael in "The Catbird Seat":

You're never gonna wanna dance again.

It can be hero-worship that crosses over into spooky "SWF" territory, as when Ian McNabb of The Icicle Works tries to become Neil Young in "A Factory In The Desert":

Dream up, dream up,
Let me fill your cup.

If you count psalms as songs, there's U2 in (Psalm) "40":

I waited patiently for the Lord.
He inclined and heard my cry.
He brought me up out of the pit,
Out of the miry clay.

And finally, there's the full-blown appropriation of someone else's lyrics, put to a different tune, like Spiritualized using JJ Cale's words in "Run":

They call me the breeze.
I keep rollin’ down the road.

Sudoku: Software

For Sudoku solvers, I recommend Simple Sudoku, a freeware Sudoku generator/solver. The website also contains a page of Hints, with some advanced techniques. (While I was running Simple Sudoku for the first time, I heard my hard drive grinding away big time. Turns out the program generates a respository of puzzles in the background the first time it's run, so don't panic.)

More Sudoku techniques.

Evolution: Darwin Not A Racist

The Dallas Morning News' Religion section has a letter today from a Wylie creationist. He writes:

That full title of Darwin's book is: The Origin Of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.
For anyone who has read Darwin, there can be no doubt that he was an outspoken racist. Anyone with black skin, according to him, represented a lower, less advanced form of civilization.

The writer goes on to infer that Evolutionists must welcome Hurricane Katrina as "a good and natural thing".

Talk.Origins debunks that canard, pointing out that Darwin used "Races" in his title to refer to varieties within a species. It also links to Darwin's writings, where it is clear that Darwin held advanced views for his time. He describes convicts from India as "noble-looking figures", and compares them favourably ("from their outward conduct, their cleanliness and faithful observance of their strange religious rites") to British convicts sent to Australia. (Although he does make reference to "the disagreeable expression of a mulatto".)

Darwin also writes of the only time on his trip when he encountered "a want of politeness":

I feel glad that this happened in the land of the Brazilians, for I bear them no good will — a land also of slavery, and therefore of moral debasement.

There is more, if you're interested, at the EvoWiki.

Music Quiz: Band Names

What do the following bands have in common? Deacon Blue, Death Cab For Cutie, Radiohead and Shakespear's Sister.

Current Events: George W. Bush

This one's for Rarb: Sky News caption under Pres. Bush.

Feeble Attempt At Humour

Apple has announced its latest winner: the iPod nana. Measuring just 4" x 2.5" and weighing less than an ounce, it smells of cat pee, squeezes your cheeks and tells you that you look just like her cousin who died in 1928 when he fell through the ice on a frozen lake.