Which is a more ridiculous premise: Freddy Vs. Jason or Batman vs. Superman?

Tragically, rumor has it the latter has been shelved.

Ahhh, Hollywood. No wonder the rest of the world doesn't take us seriously.

Friend Mark advises:

Just got home from a performance by Dairakudakan, a Japanese butoh company. It was unlike anything I have ever seen. And they will be performing in NYC July 15-19 at the Japan Society, 333 East 47th Street. Looks like two different programs.

Check it out.

Sort of a cross between Blue Man Group and One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest. This photo should explain:

Highly recommended. Don't miss it.

It's on my calendar!

A tiger and an elephant lived in a jungle and were the best of friends. Every day, they'd meet in the morning in a clearing in the forest to play. They both knew to be careful, however, of one corner of the clearing where there was a deep hole you could fall into.

One morning the tiger came out and didn't see the elephant. Then he heard cries for help from the corner of the clearing. He went over and, sure enough, the elephant was in the hole. The tiger laughed and laughed at him, saying "You idiot. Why did you fall in the hole? You know it's there."

The elephant said, "Shut up and just get me out."

So the tiger left and came back in a few minutes with his Porsche Boxer. He tied a big rope to the bumper and threw it down in the hole and told the elephant to tie it around his waist. Then he revved up the car and pulled and pulled till the elephant climbed out of the hole.

The next day, the elephant showed up to the clearing and didn't see the tiger but then heard cries for help coming from the corner of the field. Sure enough, the tiger had fallen in the hole. The elephant laughed and laughed and said, "Who's the idiot now?"

The tiger said, "Shut up and just get me out."

So the elephant straddled the hole and leaned over, dangling his enormous cock above the tiger. "Grab ahold and I'll pull you out." Which he did.

Morale of the story: If you have a big cock, you don't need a Porsche.

Everyone's favorite Baghdad blogger, Salam Pax, now has a photo blog.

Bizarre. Video from a local news station featuring a dog born with deformed front legs that has learned to walk entirely on its back legs. It's posture could use some work, but it's definitely an impressive story of adaptability.

(BTW, that headline for this post may sound stupid, but it's an obscure reference to a shaggy dog story I wonder if anyone else even recognizes, but it makes me laugh.)

Apparently he didn't have ID on him, which is sort of lame, as not all security guards are computer nerds and, with all due respect to the richest man in the world, it is the White House, after all. Makes you wonder which one is the most powerful man in the world, really. I just hope it costs Bush millions in donations.

I was talking with Nick Denton the other night briefly about politics and asked him how he considers himself, and he said he still feels that he is basically a liberal (despite all his political rantings that might suggest otherwise). Same goes for me, though I have felt more or less politically rudderless since Sept. 11th, or even well before then.

It's been a long time since I've been inspired by a political leader (post-9/11 Giuliani not included). True, I dislike Bush more than I disliked Clinton, but not by a whole lot. I remember my mom saying of Clinton, "Sure he's a bastard, but he's our bastard." That may work for her, after having spent decades as a political activist Democrat, but it's not good enough for me. He certainly wasn't my bastard. I wouldn't even make him my bitch. I may still consider myself a liberal, or somehow I like the term "progressive" better, but I'm certainly not a Democrat, at least not a card carrying one, anymore. I most recently registered as a Green, just for the hell of it. I voted for Nader the last two presidential elections, but although I agree with most of his policies, I wasn't exactly inspired by him, as he was so patently unelectable. Bottom line, they're all a bunch of liars and yellow dogs and I can't stand any of them.

My view of the Democratic candidates' race for primaries now is like watching a slow-motion train wreck, only funnier. Not that I'm a close political observer; I'd rather be watching reality TV. But this is amusing enough to point out for those of you who don't follow DayPop closely (I can't live without it; I break out in hives when its servers are down and I'm forced to use its perfectly adequate alternatives Popdex and Blogdex). Dick Gephardt is getting a wonderfully satisfying introduction to blogs. Remember how bloggers picked up and obsessed on the foibles of Trent Lott and Howell Raines that the rest of the traditional media initially overlooked, eventually costing those two men their jobs? Well, Gephardt may well be next in line for the same treatment.

In response to the Supreme Court's recent ruling for and against the University of Michigan's affirmative action policy, Gephardt said at a Rainbow Coalition stump event:

"When I'm president, we'll do executive orders to overcome any wrong thing the Supreme Court does tomorrow or any other day."

What a freakin' ass.

So, A-List blogger and libertarian law professor Eugene Volokh calls him on it, which is getting lots of links around the blogosphere. ABC News then picks up on it, and gets this email response from Gephardt's campaign spokesman Erik Smith:

"The fact that this question comes from libertarian law professors should speak for itself. [Huh?] Dick Gephardt knows the law. The president can not overturn a Supreme Court decision. That's not what he said...."

This, despite the fact that Volokh provides a link to a C-SPAN video which clearly demonstrates that is verbatim what Gephardt said (fast forward to 45:40).

Idiot. I'm pleased to have this chance to get in early on this as yet another blogger linking to this blunder in hopes that the groundswell of attention to it forces him to account for what the hell he actually meant to say.

In fact, blogs are in themselves the most inspiring movement in politics I've seen since I was last idealistic back in college, lo many years ago. Truly democracy in its most unadulterated form. Sadly, this kind of nit-picking like we've seen on Lott and Gephardt is really besides the point. It's fun, but to be fair, anyone can say something stupid in a fit of passion or under the glare of stage lights that you later regret and just didn't come out right (don't I know it). (Of course, having your spokesperson later deny that you said it and blame the messengers because they are libertarian law professors -- like "we all know about libertarian law professors" -- doesn't really help matters.)

No, the real problem is the whole damn political system. Namely, it costs a fortune to run for public office because it all comes down to advertising on TV, a commodity horded by companies based on a government issued license of the public's airways. As a result, the politicians whore themselves to big business to raise the money to run the ads to win the elections. It's all so incestuous and circular it's insane. Here's the obvious solution: set aside free time for political ads. Have TV networks raise the price of the rest of their ads to make up for what they lose in political ads, which companies would easily be able to afford as they won't have to buy off the politicians any more, because the politicians won't need to raise so much money for the TV ads, where 90% of their budgets go to today. Easy peasy.

That's the real issue, not what one particular moron said with his foot in his mouth in one particular stump speech. Can't we bloggers somehow organize to force real campaign finance reform once and for all onto the agenda? That would demonstrate that our collective power could actually be useful to make a real difference. Let's not hold the bastards accountable just in onesies and twosies, let's go straight to the source and fix what's really wrong with the system. A nice thought for me to dream about tonight, anyway. Goodnight.

Blogging about the weather: that's what keeps Bruner Blog readers soming back week after week.

So, this whole spring was cold and rainy, which sucked. We wished and wished it would get warm. Now it's 95 degrees and impossibly humid, as it's supposed to be like this time of year. Too bad spring is the only nice time of year we get here.

At least the lovely ladies of NY are showing their shoulders on the street at last.

Police in Florida arrested a six-year-old girl for having a lemonade stand without a business permit. Don't you feel safer?

Harry's Place has moved. Sadly, I can't say who Harry is, as he's a working journalist for a big-name media company that is not thrilled about its employees blogging. All I can say is he used to live in Budapest and now lives in Italy. If that doesn't clue you in, you probably don't need to know.

I know my out-of-town friends think from this blog that I spend every weekend at the Bulgarian Bar, for all I carry on about it. In fact, in the three and a half years that I've lived in NYC, I've only been there maybe six times. It's just that it's so damn much fun every time that I normally blog about each visit, which just makes it seem like I spend all my time there. What more to say? I wish I knew the name of the Romanian Gypsy brass band that was playing there last night to give them props. Not on stage, just a dozen funky horns bobbing amidst the thronging masses on the dance floor. Epic fun, as usual. Dancing on the tables. Sex in the air. Cigarette smoke, too. True, I don't get out much, but I am quite sure there's not else like it in NY, or anywhere on this side of the Danube, for that matter. Everyone at the Bulgar is 19 years old, even if you're pushing 40 or beyond.

As noted on my other blog, I recently set two friends up with what everyone else in the blogosphere is only talking about: business blogs. As if that weren't studly enough, I also got one of these, BizNetTravel.com, mentioned in the Boston Globe.

A friend writes:

These cats are supermodels! Runty (male, black fur with a white patch on underside of belly) and Gremlin (male, grey/black/white stripped fur) are great cats.

1-1.2 year old siblings, friendly, great personalities, short-haired fur (don’t shed too much) litter box trained, all shots current & neutered. What more could you want! Perfect cats without all the work!!

Would like to place them together, but am willing to split them up to give them the best home possible.

If interested, email me.

Adrienne almost cried when she looked at this chart on Weather.com. I just spent most of the last week in San Francisco and environs, where it was beautifully sunny every day. On Sunday, I fell asleep in the sun and spent the rest of the week at a conference with a red face. It's been so long since we've seen the sun in NY that I forget how it works.

UPDATE:
NYT and NPR both report on how damn depressing the rain is at this point.

Why is there not a web-based version of instant messaging? I'm on the road at the moment and I want to chat with a friend on IM, but I'm using my sister's machine, so I'm reluctant to simply install MSN Messenger on her machine. What would be ideal would be the Hotmail version of IM -- a web-based location where I could log into my same account and check to see whether my friends are online using any computer. I can't be the first person to have though of that. Given that Hotmail is MSN, it seems a no-brainer for MSN to do the same thing with their phenomenally popular IM service.

Getting on a plane shortly to fly to San Francisco for @d:tech. Good thing I'm not superstitious. (Yipes!)

If I didn't know better, I'd think I was obsessed. (Scroll down)

My head hurts. I don't feel so good.

Had the pleasure to hang out with him the last couple of nights. Completely gay. Total denial. (Married, kids, the whole deal.) Sad.

(Seemed funny, anyway, when written at 3am rather tipsy.)

Information wants to be free. Unfortunately, it seems that "the facts" have decided to use that freedom to take a permanent vacation. Honestly (if I can still permit myself that presumption), who is there left to believe anymore?

• The New York Times?
• The Guardian?
• Our "elected" "leaders"?
• The CIA?
• Wall Street?
• Celebrities?
• Sports heroes?
• The Church?
• The faithful?
• Al Qaeda, maybe?

Who am I forgetting? Wow, it's a sad, cynical age we live in. How can you be anything but? Freedom of information apparently means believe anything you want, these days, as it's all relative and up to interpretation, spin and political advantage.

For now, I still trust the bloggers, and that's about it.

TKO's 12-lb Rubberized Medicine Ball. The perfect counterbalance to Haagen-Dazs Blueberry Cheesecake ice cream.

Obscenely delicious.

A friend and I were walking along 18th St. heading east the other day when a strange thing happened: a police car pulled up, with four cops in it (always a bit odd to see cops sitting in the backseat of a cruiser), and it pulls up next to us and the cop in the passenger seat leans out the window and asks "Hey, where is Irving Place?"

As an uptown kind of guy, I was a bit hazy myself, but I told him to keep going east, as it was across 5th Avenue somewhere. Traffic was moving slow, so I saw them pull up at the next block and ask someone else.

Aren't cops supposed to know stuff like that? I was glad to see they weren't rushing to an apparent emergency there. Incredibly, my friend and I had just been talking about GPS technology. Shouldn't they have something like that in their cop cars? Honestly, I don't know how a cop could ask directions with a straight face.

Well, to any who doubted the credibility of whether the Baghdad blogger Salam Pax actually exists, read this story. It's written by my friend Peter Maass, who just got back from three months of war reporting in Iraq, where the real Salam was his interpreter.

The mind boggles: McDonald's is suing a food critic who dared to say its burgers taste like rubber.

Sometimes it actually is worth it to give into the demands of terrorists, like when they are willing to free their hostages for a six-pack of Dr. Pepper. Not surprisingly, Dr. Pepper's very lame blog doesn't even mention this.

Talk about truth in advertising. Detroit Free Press reports:

General Motors Corp. will launch a nationwide ad campaign next week to admit something many consumers already knew: GM made some poor vehicles in the 1980s and 1990s.

Art students in England have spliced human DNA into apples. Mmmm. Makes you wonder about poor old Granny Smith.

Our president now has a food taster to make sure his meals aren't poisoned. Just like...um...Saddam Hussein.

In other useless news, computer scientist Jeffrey Shallit set his might intellect not to solving hunger or world peace but to the vexing problem of too many coins rattling around in Americans' pockets. He has calculated that our economy would be 17% more efficient at making change if we replaced the dime with an 18-cent piece. I'm wondering what would be the best thing to call it? Ideas?

Everyone talks about business blogging. Well, I'm pleased to say I've turned two friends on to actually doing it. One will be announced shortly, as we're still putting the final touches on a business site I've helped him build, but the other is ready for unvailing. I introduce to you Brent Schimke's Roundtable Communications Weblog, devoted to the theme of virtual communications (e.g., phone conferencing, wireless communication and related topics). Congrats, Brent! Looking forward to seeing your GoogleRank rip and sales leads come flooding in, or at least to reading some interesting copy on the topic of air-travel-free conferencing.

For 200+ years, Unicum has been the drink of choice for Hungarians, just further evidence what a peculiar race they are. A concoction of some 40 herbs and spices, it is an aperitif in the family known as "bitters," something Americans generally don't drink. Think of it as Jagermeister for real men. Tar black in color, syrupy in consistency, with a flavor akin to hairspray and a buzz more like a controlled substance than your average booze, I love the stuff.

I do know of a liquor store on 2nd Ave around 83rd that carries the stuff, but now my buddy and fellow Unicum lover Ken Pasternak sends word of Unicum's U.S. distributor, Crillon Importers, with retail locations all around the U.S., including nearly a dozen in Manhattan, where the stuff allegedly can be found. I assure you, you've never had anything quite like it, hence the name: Unicum.