Bennifer
There have been some whispers and photos of the more recent version of Bennifer being spotted here in Charlottesville. Now the Washington Post can verify:

Why, who should happen to be pondering a move to Thomas Jefferson country but a certain square-jawed media magnet with a taste for liberal politics and millions to spend on it . . . Ben Affleck ! Star of "Gigli" and the J.Lo tab romance, now happily settled with "Alias" star Jennifer Garner .

The couple, expecting their first child, have been shopping for real estate around Charlottesville. British tabloids claim it's a done deal; we will only go so far as to report that they checked out at least one country estate a few weeks ago.

I couldn't be less impressed. Ben Affleck? If I ran into him on the street, I probably wouldn't even want to talk to him. Sure, I'd gawk, but he's not someone I'd want to meet or hang out with. He seems a bit too full of himself. I actually used to like Jennifer Garner until she got mixed up with his demon seed.

Oh well, it's probably no coincidence that since I've moved to Charlottesville it's become one of the "best places to live." Right?

Chris Matthews
I don't usually watch Chris Matthews anymore, but since the hurricane coverage bumped Conan O'Brien from the 7:00PM slot on CNBC I've been surfing around more. Anyway I caught this exchange between Matthews and Congressman Peter King which left Matthews pretty speechless.

Matthews tried to play the Halliburton card several times, you know: Cheney, connections, no bid contracts, etc. But King pointed out that in any disaster to expidite the process of getting relief, you can't really do a bidding process. Even under Clinton, most of this type of work ended up going to the evil Halliburton anyway, because they are the only company that is qualified to do this kind of work.

Sharks With Frickin Laser Beams?
Finally an answer to Dr. Evil's famous request: "You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!"

Well not sharks, but he can get dolphins with toxic dart guns:

It may be the oddest tale to emerge from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico.

Experts who have studied the US navy's cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying 'toxic dart' guns. Divers and surfers risk attack, they claim, from a species considered to be among the planet's smartest. The US navy admits it has been training dolphins for military purposes, but has refused to confirm that any are missing.

Perhaps they are ill tempered as well?

Going To
Here's something that provides some support for something I believe strongly in: ending sentences with prepositions. What kind of goofball would actuall say "I'm sorry I couldn't find that for which you were looking."? This might be a Chicago thing and it annoys my wife, but I'll always tack a preposition on the end of a sentence, even if it's unnecessary, "Where are you going...to?" Thanks to Newmark's Door for the pointer.

Priorities
Having solved all of our other problems, our administration is trying to get it's priorities in order and is cracking down on "consensual adult porn". I think this FBI agent sums this one up best:

"I guess this means we've won the war on terror"

Stupid stuff like this makes me wish we had a divided government. Our governor here, Mark Warner, isn't all that bad for a Democrat and he's probably running for President. Sure he'll try to steal your last dollar, but with a Republican Congress he hasn't gotten far.

Five Blades?
Five blades and 2 lubricating strips? Come on Gillette, now you're just being silly:

Gillette has escalated the razor wars yet again, unveiling a new line of razors on Wednesday with five blades and a lubricating strip on both the front and back.

The razor, known as the Fusion, has blades spaced 30 percent closer than Gillette's current MACH3Turbo system. It also has a single blade on the back of the cartridge for shaving sideburns or trimming under the nose.

And yes, they must have stole this idea from the Onion, who thought of it first.

Under Armour
I see in this Slate article that Under Armour is going public. Under Armour makes these awful shirts that really should only be worn by professional football players with less than 10% body fat. I've seen some clowns at my gym wearing these things, and well, can we still say stuff looks "gay" and have it mean really foolish and retarded-looking without offending people? (OK, probably not). But it does look gay.

This got me thinking about the state of athletic apparel. I guess when I grew up, "shorts" were about the same length as boxer shorts, so that if you were wearing boxer shorts, you could often see them under your shorts. (ie. Umbro circa 1989). Now "shorts", even stuff that you might work out in are at your knee. I personally think this looks silly for working out in, but I've recently succumbed to this trend because all my old "shorts" are now "threads" and I've had to adapt. What's my point? I forgot. I guess that means I'm old. At least I'm not the guy wearing dark socks and really short shorts. (Yet)

Spin Doctors
Remember them? I always liked the Spin Doctors. They have 3 songs that you still hear on the radio: "Two Princes", "Little Miss Can't be Wrong" and the "Pocket Full of Krypotite" one, which I believe is also called the "Jimmy Olson Blues". All solid. I was expecting a follow-up record from those guys but they just kinda disappeared in the mid-90s. Until last night, when, for whatever reason, they were playing at the new Charlottesville pavillion for the unprincely sum of $3. 3 bucks? I'd be willing to go $16, maybe $18 to see the Spin Doctors in Charlottesville on a Sunday night.

Anyway, they sounded pretty good. The guitar player is still working some of the rust out of his solos, but for $3, who cares. They are the band's original line up, which I guess I never realized that it had changed, but a brief reading of their website tells their tale. I always kinda liked that lead singer, for no reason other that he looked like kind of a fun guy in a goofy-bearded sort of way, and you know he seemed like a good guy last night, sincerely thanking the folks for spending our Sunday evening with them. They have a new album out tomorrow and I might just get it because he asked us to.

If Clinton Was President
I've been saying since the start of this Hurricane fiasco to anyone who would listen (OK, maybe I just mentioned this once to my dog) that if Clinton was president we'd be in exactly the same place--but everyone would feel a lot better about it. Bush just can't hit the right notes in public and any perceived delay in action looks like mismanagement. Clinton would have been out there immediately singing songs and holding hands. Here Craig Newmark has a dream of what it would like if Clinton were still in charge.

Gilligan
Oh drat, we've lost Gilligan. Here's my tribute to the Skipper's little buddy a few Halloween's ago.

Gas Prices
Alright, this is getting ridiculous. I filled up last week at $2.44/gal and now it's $3.25/gal around here. I can close my eyes and grudgingly take a $30 fill-up, but $40 is a little too much.

I decided that it's time for me to do my part to help reduce overall demand for gas. So this weekend, I decided not to mow my lawn, and I'm not going to until it's knee high! Take that you greedy oil companies!

Older
Hey, it's my birthday. I'm 36. That seems old, but oh well, everyone else is getting older too. I share this birthday with my sister Sue, 37, my nephew Brendan, 7, Keanu Reeves, 41, Salma Hayek, 39, Mark Harmon, 54, and a lot of other people. That's a pretty attractive group.

Search for Bond
Since Pierce Brosnan is out, the producers of the long running James Bond series are looking for a replacement. Here is an article with the short list of replacements:

Hugh Jackman, Ewan McGregor, Jude Law, Heath Ledger, Clive Owen and Orlando Bloom are among the names that have been floated so far as possible replacements for Brosnan.

Last August, Hulk star Eric Bana was rumored to be stepping into 007's shoes; by January, one British oddsmaker had stopped taking bets on Mission: Impossible 2 bad guy Dougray Scott after wagers on the actor increased disproportionately.

I'll go on record saying that I'm available, but will concede that I'm probably a little too short for the role--but then so are Jude Law, Orlando Bloom and Ewan McGregor. I'd say Clive Owen or Eric Bana. Hugh Jackman would be OK, but just seems a to lack something.

The original James Bond in Ian Flemming's novels was supposedly 6'0" in height and Flemming wrote the character thinking that he looked like Hoagy Carmichael.