Friday, September 14, 2001

No Blather today, except this:

Jerry Falwell on this week's events --
News report.
Hear it for yourself.
"Clarification."

Question: In what "context" are these remarks anything but loathsome?

12:51 PM ...yes? []

Thursday, September 13, 2001

No Blather today, except:
Three more ways to make fast, easy donations to disaster relief.
United Way of New York
The Salvation Army
New York City Firefighter, EMS, and Rescue Workers Relief Fund

10:14 AM ...yes? []

Wednesday, September 12, 2001

No new posts today except this one:
Amazon.com, Paypal and Yahoo PayDirect have set up easy ways to donate to Red Cross disaster relief.

12:12 PM ...yes? []

Tuesday, September 11, 2001

Hard day to be funny. Blather will be back soon.

10:21 AM ...yes? []

Monday, September 10, 2001

Best Flash animation ever.

4:50 PM ...yes? []

As predicted in this space back in June -- and man oh man, do I hate being right about this -- the British TV show "Banzai!" has crossed the sea and now airs, in a slightly altered form, on USA Network. If, as the USA web site has it, "YOU NOT KNOW WHAT USA'S BANZAI MOVIE FRIDAY IS?", you're in for a treat. Oh, wait. Not a treat. What's the word... Oh yeah: A nightmare of xenophobic shrillness. USA Network, in typically craven American fashion, offers a half-assed disclaimer about how the show is not intended to insult or offend. Which at least Channel4, the British originator of the show, never felt the need to do. Score one point for them. And enjoy!

3:10 PM ...yes? []

Strange Brew links to this site, which makes custom paper dolls to look like you or your children, and calls it "either vaguely creepy or just old-fashioned fun." I know which side I come down on.

12:33 PM ...yes? []

Reuters reports that the 101-year-old Queen Mother is "amused" by rumors of her demise. "Absolutely marvelous," she chuckled when an assistant showed her one such recent report. Then, still smiling, she moved with the quickness of a cat to seize the hapless aide in an iron throat-grip, the chuckle never fading from her lips as she squeezed, squeezed, squeezed his miserable life away. Then it was over. The aide's lifeless body hit the floor with a sickening Thud. "Someone clean this mess up," the beloved centenarian snarled, turning smartly on her heel and marching from the room.

12:14 PM ...yes? []

Lileks.com has fallen victim to its own success, in the form of crushingly high bandwidth charges. Owner James Lileks has taken down most of the site while he casts around for a solution. (See "The Bleat" for a fuller explanation.) Lileks promises he'll be back at full strength by January, or maybe earlier. In the meantime, buy the book and help support the best pop-culture site on the Web.

11:45 AM ...yes? []

Gap executives profess bafflement at much worse-than-expected August sales for the company, which also includes Old Navy and Banana Republic. Investors were likewise perturbed, sending the retailer's shares down 21 percent on Thursday. When stockholders demanded answers, CEO Millard Drexler responded: "Wait. Hang on. I know what it is."

11:16 AM ...yes? []

"Mmmmm.... Adrenalizing... " Here's an update on the story about how Starbucks is NOT putting ephedrine in its gloppy, disturbing, sticky-sweet Chai Tea things. The National Football League has just banned the use of ephedra, the herb from which the drug is derived, as a performance enhancer, citing its link to heart attacks, strokes and seizures in otherwise healthy young people. A spokesman for the NFL Players Association was unavailable for comment, as he was carpooling to Starbucks.

10:46 AM ...yes? []

"Attention K-Mart shoppers! There's a Blue Light Special... coming RIGHT AT YOU! RUN! RUN! OH, THE HUMANITY!!!"

10:41 AM ...yes? []

Sunday, September 09, 2001

A suit filed late last week in Los Angeles Superior Court charges that Starbucks has been secretly doping its Chai tea with ephedrine, an amphetamine-like drug that stimulates the heart and central nervous system, since at least 1996. Starbucks, now entering its fourth decade of charging Americans $3.05 for a nickel's worth of espresso and a dime's worth of milk froth, denies the charge: "We put massive doses of anabolic steroids in our Frappuccinos and nobody's ever said a word," according to a company spokesman, speaking from the Starbucks Crisis Bunker deep in a Washington hillside. "There's LSD in every single latte we sell -- nothing. We stick enough ketamine in just one of our iced coffees to kill a good-sized horse -- nothing. And the lethal levels of slugbait in every one of our Pesto/Mozzarella sandwiches... ? Nobody's ever bitched about that. Honestly, this Chai thing has us baffled. We always figured if anybody came for us on the Chais, it'd be because they're sweet enough to make your fillings melt. Which'd be the arsenic, by the way. But ephedrine? Our hands are clean on this one."

10:04 PM ...yes? []