Vote Early And Often! (updated)

[I've moved this entry to the front page again because it's so important to me. Please read and vote for SAFE Haven For Cats. Thanks.]

Yes, VOTE!!!  Not for any elected official this time, but for a wonderful shelter. 

Seriously, help me out here.  The Animal Rescue Site (a marvelous web page for helping feed animals in need) is offering a $100,000 shelter challenge, which could mean a $25,000 grant for some lucky animal shelter out there. 

As you may know, I volunteer at SAFE Haven For Cats, a fantastic no-kill shelter for cats and kittens in Raleigh, NC.  For those folks who want to make a difference, this shelter is the real deal.  Caring people who are determined to finds homes for homeless felines plus lifelong support and education for adopters and a low-cost spay/neuter clinic that’s making real humane progress to help end pet overpopulation.

Personally, I’d love to see SAFE Haven get this $25,000 grant and that’s why I’m asking for your help.  All you have to do is go to The Animal Rescue Site at www.theanimalrescuesite.com (worth doing even if you don’t vote for my shelter) and follow these instructions:

1. Click on the purple box to give free food

2. Click the “Vote Now” button (upper right area of screen)

3. Scroll down to the purple box, type in SAFE Haven for Cats, select NC and click search

4. Click “vote” next to the shelter name

5. Type in the type of animal you see (in all lower case letters) and click the “confirm vote” button

It’s really easy; you don’t have to register or sign in.  You can even vote every day (the contest ends December 14) and encourage your friends and family and coworkers to do the same!

So please, help out a deserving shelter and vote in the ANIMAL RESCUE SITE $100,000 SHELTER+ CHALLENGE (brought to you by Petfinder).  The cats would really appreciate it.  (They would also appreciate some Pounce treats and a scratch under the chin – but you can’t do that online.)

Paul Newman (1925 – 2008)

Celebrated actor Paul Newman is dead at 83.  If you feel the need to commemorate the man and his work (and you should), just go and rent a bunch of his films and eat fifty eggs. 

I’d suggest The Sting, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, Cool Hand Luke, and either Hud or the Hudsucker Proxy. 

As for the eggs?  I suggest a napkin or a bucket.

Suffrage Succotash

Okay, hey, look … I don’t get serious here much but tonight is the first of what should be four major candidate debates between potential Prezes and VPs here in the US.  Election Day is a little over a month away.  Sure, I have my personal faves and I think I know for which candidate I’ll cast a ballot, but this isn’t an attempt to get you to vote for my guy (or gal) or to chastise you for voting for your brand of lying weasel.

I’m begging you, one and all, to vote.  But not just that: VOTE INFORMED.  Register to vote, that’s a start.  There’s still time in most places, I believe.  If you were already registered, check to see that you still are.  You don’t want any surprises at the polls come Election Day. 

Once you are registered, do your homework.  Watch the debates.  Visit candidates’ web sites or campaign headquarters.  Participate in town hall meetings.  Ask questions.  Never take anything at face value, especially political ads.  Research the candidates’ records and always take who is saying what is being said into account; everyone has an agenda.

Finally, once you’ve done your homework, made up your mind based on logic and what’s best for you, your family, your community, your state, your country, vote dammit.  Pull a lever, make an X, press a button, whatever it takes to make your voice heard.  Don’t make excuses.  Take Election Day off (or a half day) if you think you’ll need it.  Vote early or by absentee ballot if it’s allowable were you live.  Do not get caught out at your precinct’s polling site by long lines – plan ahead.  And tell your friends and family to do the same.

If I stoop to cliché and claim that this is the most important election of our generation, forgive me.  But it’s true.  Look at the @#$%ing headlines. 

So, please, vote, vote informed, vote for all those idiots who won’t and vote for all those who can’t.  You have a voice.  Use it.

Hollywood Uncovered!

I have had a pretty crappy week all told.  Car problems mainly.  And after spending nearly two hours on a city bus today I thought things were about as bleak as they could ever be and that the sun would never shine again.

Then I saw this: Megan Fox says, “I would love to do a movie naked!”

Yes indeed.  This comely young actress has expressed a desire to film a major motion picture wearing naught but what the good Lord blessed her with at birth.  (And after reading this I can believe in God.)

So, if you’ll excuse me while I speak for a good portion of the planet’s population with a Y chromosome (and a few without) …

a-hem …

The script is not important, the director can be a hack and I don’t care if the cinematographer is a guy with a two eye patches and glaucoma … WILL SOMEONE IN TINSELTOWN GREENLIGHT THE S#!& OUTTA THIS FLICK RIGHT NOW?!?!?!  I bloody well want this sucker in the multiplex by Thanksgiving and I want to be sitting there, front row center, at a special midnight showing and all you d-bags behind me better turn off the cell phones, stop the damn texting and shut the hell up.

I have not been this excited about a movie since the first Pokemon film.  For – uh, completely different reasons, mind you.

Sparky MacMillan is in his summer palace in Peking. He loves everybody.

Oh $#*&!

Comedian George Carlin has died. 

Was he the best?  In his heyday, his prime, quite possibly.  Comedy Central ranked him number two, behind Richard Pryor and right before Lenny Bruce.  Hard to argue with that. 

I’d say he’ll be missed but the truth is he inspired so many comedians working today that he will always be around in spirit.

George Carlin: gone; definitely not forgotten. 

Wait’ll He Gets The Bill!

People are stupid (present company excepted, of course).  Especially when they deal with wildlife.

Click HERE and check out this tool as he gets the bird … right in the face!

heh.  It just makes me laugh to see goobers like this get busted.

Sad

I just found out that actor Harvey Korman has passed away.

Go out RIGHT NOW and rent Blazing Saddles or High Anxiety or something.  Tears will not do; we must have laughter to honor this man!

Um … 16?

Try your hand at THE HARDEST LOST QUIZ EVER.  (Seriously. The only way this bugger could be any harder is if you had to survive a plane crash and be stranded on a deserted island to take it.)

A Test of Character

RedEye is holding its second annual BEST CHARACTER ON TV tourney.

Vote for your fave in matchups that can pit such disparate boob tube protagonists as Dexter Morgan and Larry David or the Devil and Dr. Perry Cox against each other.  Round one is happening now so click HERE to cast your vote.

Personally, my money’s on Ben from LOST.  Although I wouldn’t mind a Captain Jack Harkness sweep (but he’s losing to a freakin’ cartoon!).

And Now, A Weird From Our Sponsor…

Nerve has ranked the 50 GREATEST COMMERCIAL PARODIES OF ALL TIME.  Of course, the list is SNL-heavy and no British shows are represented (where’s Monty Python’s Charles Atlas Dynamo Tension ad or Not the Nine O’Clock News’ American Express spoof?), but this is a damn fine assortment nonetheless.  And worth a look if only for the Sam Waterston Robot Insurance ad.