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This was already turned in. That runs next week. Have your list ready (and...I finally saw the Viagra spot, with that goofy Viva Viagra song).— April 22, 2009 5:35 p.m.
Police Officer Shootings
mel..sorry to hear about your wrist. the thing i'm curious about the faust case is "all these witnesses" everyone talked about. at a traffic stop, how can there be so many multiple witnesses, as to whether or not a cop needed to fire? was the car full of people? did other drivers know what was being said or reached for? i'm guessing no.— April 22, 2009 5:27 p.m.
Celebrity Idiots -- The Jamie Fox and Hulk Hogan Edition
I can't believe I haven't asked this. Ovod, how in the world did you find this thread, if you're in Russia? Did you Google "Hulk Hogan" or something? And, we've all admitting to watching those reality shows. I don't know what is more gross, Brett Michaels headband and eye liner, or the way he kisses a woman. His cheeks start moving like Satchmo! It's disgusting.— April 22, 2009 4:31 p.m.
A Cop and Contestant in a Pagaent
There was a local dude that looked like Ricky Martin. As you can imagine, he did really well with the ladies. Some asked why he had a crappy apartment in Chula Vista. But they still slept with him. I believe he went to jail for raping a woman, though. Livin' La Vida LOCO! I did a story for the Reader once on local impersonators. Some of them make some good money. The Eric Stoltz thing is funny. At least he didn't look like him from his MASK character.— April 22, 2009 4:28 p.m.
Electric Cigarettes, Cyrus, Homeless, Chinese...Something offensive for everyone!
SD: I always felt bad for smokers. They have to go outside. They have to stand AWAY from the door, or people will complain. And I'm not a smoker (other than cigars). But, I'm having less sympathy because of the amount of smokers that have the cigarette out the car window, so they don't stink up their car. And, they don't think twice about throwing the lit butt out the window, which could start a fire and is littering. lallaw...yes, check out line etiquette. A strange thing. One guy told me I should by different razors, as they'd cut the hair better and wouldn't cut my pimples. I said "I'm 39...I haven't gotten a pimple since high school." He was old, so he got a pass from me. But under other circumstances, I might tell a person commenting on my food "Can't you look at the magazine rack instead of my food? Look, Michael Jackson got a new nose, and Angelina Jolie got a new baby. That's more interesting than why I'm buying 10 boxes of Zingers."— April 22, 2009 4:26 p.m.
Police Officer Shootings
The above story is EXACTLY why I contacted the police about a year ago. I told them, from stories I've heard and things I've seen on shows (like COPS), the police need to be trained to deal with taunting better, and not just take comments personally. It's becoming a PR nightmare for them. The thing is, these are regular people. And if you're mouthing off to them, they're going to get mad. In my opinion, they should be above that. Or hell, they can actually have fun with it, without getting phsical. For example, if I was a cop and pulled someone over and they started mouthing off, I'd casually tell them this stop is now going to take a lot longer than it would've. I might also say, "Oh...I notice this is also wrong with your car. I may not have noticed that if you weren't being such a jerk, but now that I see that...I'm citing you for that as well." I'm not saying it would get to me smashing their taillight with my billyclub and saying "You gots a busted light here!" But...a cop could get under your skin without being a nut job, if you do it to them first. I originally sided with the police against this local musician, because of the amount of people I've seen in clubs that get drunk, and bouncers have the worst time dealing with them and trying to 86 'em. I always think...if this was a cop, somebody would be getting shot right now! But, even if you watch a show like COPS, you see times were the police themselves, make situations worse. But as rickeysays said, they aren't paid to be nice and kiss your butt. They're doing a job, and it must get tiring for them to always hear excuses or get yelled at. Although, that's why I say, that stuff should be dealt with better in their training procedures.— April 22, 2009 9:24 a.m.
Electric Cigarettes, Cyrus, Homeless, Chinese...Something offensive for everyone!
I didn't look for it yet. I'm going to go pick up a cake for my friends birthday today (I'm going to have them write on it "Dodgers Suck"). So, I'll look in their ice cream section and see what I find. The electric cigarettes, from what I briefly heard the lady explain to a guy...they release a small amount of nicotine. They look like real cigarettes, and light up at the end when you inhale. Very strange.— April 22, 2009 9:14 a.m.
Police Officer Shootings
Well Mel, here's the problem with your statement about me "learning more" before spouting off. And, not to toot my own horn, but I don't need to learn more if the folks out there that did all the research present it to me. Because, I'll clearly change my mind if I was wrong. The folks at the other publication wouldn't do that. And the reason I just immediately side with the cops...well, I'll give you two examples. The poster here (Drew), told a story. Does anyone REALLY believe that happened? Think about how crazy it sounds. Another example was something I saw on the news today. There was a car accident and some joker pulled over to film it. A Latino cop told the person to leave the scene. He was a bit angry about it, and sternly told the guy to leave. The guy wouldn't. As the cop got angrier, he THEN admitted to being a TV news reporter (although he wasn't in a news van). He tells the cameraman to keep filming and won't leave. The cop gets angrier, before finally cuffing this guy as he keeps telling the cameraman and the cop "I'm doing nothing wrong here. You know, we got all this on tape," to which the cop replies "so what! I don't care." They are both arrested. Now Mel...I guarantee all these cop haters are going to see this and think the officer was wrong to manhandle these guys, etc. But the guys wouldn't leave the scene as asked. And this isn't a scene like the Rodney King beating. I'm willing to guess that the cop wanted the area cleared because it's a safety hazard to have vehicles pulling over on a freeway. There was another story years ago, where a player on the Chargers got pulled over for something. He fit the description of a call the cop got. Instead of just doing exactly what he was told, he angrily asked the cop what was going on, so the cop got him on the ground at gun point and cuffed him. It was implied that the cop did this to the player because he was a big black guy, driving an Escalade. When the simple fact is....the guy fit the description. You can show your drivers license and hammer it all out without being difficult, and the cop probably won't be difficult. Instead, everyone just goes down a path of the big, bad cops walking around like thugs with badges. And it gets tiring. It's easier for me to go under the assumption that the cops are doing the right thing, and once in a while a criminal complains about it. Or a regular citizen that was in the wrong place at the right time. I like to think the facts eventually come out. Using your logic about me thinking before I go off...well, Lall said it best. But, I did a blog recently about ice cream flavors I wished there were. And someone posted that there was a chocolate cookie dough flavor out there. Should I have Googled first, to be assured there wasn't already the ice cream flavor I yearned for? I understand in a shooting that resulted in a death there's more on the line.— April 22, 2009 12:38 a.m.
Junk Talk
I just saw the movie Tokyo! at the Ken. Don't waste your time. But I had to mention in this thread, perhaps the best scene ever, of a V on screen. This guy makes a low-budget movie (in the film), and when he's screening it, there's a scene where a woman is giving birth. They do the view from the inside of the woman, looking out at the husband. You see the womans knees and legs up in the air. And around the screen, you see what is supposed to be part of the womans V. The crowd erupted in laughter, and you can't stop staring at it, wondering what they used to create that visual. The problem is, you end up missing the subtitles for that scene.— April 22, 2009 12:09 a.m.
Police Officer Shootings
Two things...first, I don't ALWAYS side with cops. Hence my more recent blog on how that cop should be fired in PA for laughing about a shooting victim and the victims mother reacting to it. Second...I have officially changed my mind in the Faust case. Having read Lalls points, I agree. That the cops wouldn't have paid out that sum of money if they felt they did nothing wrong. And mel, you made me think about the movie The Verdict, where Paul Newman is an alcoholic lawyer, who is about to lose everything. He gets an easy case, that his clients just want to settle for a small bit of change. He realizes how wrong the people were to have killed their kid at this hospital, and refuses to settle. The family is furious (even punching him, I believe), and he ends up winning them millions that they wouldn't have gotten in a settlement. I saw that movie when I was 15, but I remember so clearly, how sometimes people settle just because it's easier (and often cheaper). But...I think if the police didn't do a thing wrong, on principle, they would've fought this and not settled. So, I'm retracted what I initially felt on this case, and agree that it was a shooting that didn't need to happen. Now, my anger goes to this (and I hate this about the police). The officer that did the shooting, SHOULD be held accountable. I don't know enough about the case to know if that means him being fired, or just suspended (and re-trained) for a certain length of time. But, this is one thing I have always assumed about the cops. They probably feel like if they suspend the officer, that that IS admitting guilt. And they'd rather not deal with public asking questions like "If you are suspending him for doing something wrong, why not fire him?" or "If you are disciplining this officer, why not try him for murder?" etc etc.— April 21, 2009 9:19 p.m.