The Daily Grill

There's No Auditing For Taste

Production on a new movie, "Valkerie", starring Tom Cruise as Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, the German officer who tried to blow up Hitler in 1944, is having trouble getting started in Germany. It seems Cruise' religion of Scientology is the hiccup. To the Germans, it's viewed as a "totalitarian and exploitative cult", something they'd would rather steer clear of after that whole Nazi thing. In a rather harsh slap, German journalist Josef Joffe says that casting Cruise to play national hero von Stauffenberg is rather "like casting Judas to play Jesus." Ouch.

Spicy Italian Take-Out

Thinking he's hit on the foolproof solution to slow prostitution in his city, Cesare De Martin, mayor of the northern Italian town of San Fior near Venice, has unveiled his plan to furnish the cops with digital cameras. He then wants them to photograph any cars seen stopping if the drivers are chatting up street prostitutes. The license plates will then be run in local newspapers. Although the Vatican has asked for new laws to punish customers of the working girls, De Martin says his motivation is much more mundane: "I think it's more important to protect the rights of citizens who have to be at work early but are kept up at night by the sound of cars," he told the Reuters news service. It seems to me that if those pictures fall into the wrong hands, San Fior could end up with a new late-night menu.

The Present Looked Better As The Future

Jetpacks have FINALLY arrived! If you're a Boomer like me, you'll probably remember those tantalizing moments shown on The Wonderful World of Disney when a dude in a shiny white helmet and jumpsuit blasted into the sky. It seemed that it would be just a matter of days until we'd all have them after that (never mind the logistics of how a public that kept running into each other at intersections on the ground was going to manage flying through the air en masse.) But that day never came. Until now.

Not one but two companies are now offering the chance to zip through the atmosphere, with the power of flight crammed into a pack on your back. And there's Rub #1: Tecnologia Aeroespacial Mexicana and Jetpack International are selling their first generation jetpacks for $250K and $150K, respectively. Rub #2? You can stay aloft for about 30 seconds before the things run out of fuel. Don't get me wrong -- it would still be a rush -- but you're not going to be solving any commute problems anytime soon.

Yoohoo, Yahoo

Why are stock analysts and other financial wonks all head-scratchy about why former web darling Yahoo is floundering? It's pretty obvious that they started sucking wind as soon as they were saddled with that big corporate AT&T in front of their funny, happy name. Stupid corporate egos insist they slap their monikers on everything they own. Who cares? Especially in an environment where the majority of youthful web cruisers run from anything that is so obviously Big Corporate. If Jerry Yang, the new-old guy in charge there really wants to make a difference, just try plopping that AT&T in little tiny print at the very bottom of the website for starters...

Party Off, Bloomy!

The Big Apple's Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has blown off his Republicant affiliation in what is being seen as a possible run at the White House in '08 as an Independent. While I'd love to see a 3rd party anybody squeak into the Oval Office and knock the status quo on its over-inflated tookus (and for politicians, took us is definitely the right term...), the last joker to grab any glory in that regard was Ross Perot. Nothing against Bloomberg, but Perot was a lovable, kooky, insane rich dude. Bloomberg's just rich. And an Independent-of-Opportunity. Otherwise known as an iGOP.

iGOP Definition: A former Republican who quit that party and went Independent so he could have a party of his own.

Death Of The Senior Class Prank

2007 may mark the last year of the Senior Class Prank. It seems political correctness is colliding head-on with the rise in school shootings and campus violence . This, in turn, is creating a vacuum in which activities like the traditional high school senior class practical joke cannot survive, because they're being taken too seriously. Top of the list is the stunt last week at Hendrick Hudson High School in New York State, where cops responded with bomb-sniffing mutts...because of duct tape-wrapped alarm clocks planted inside the school. Clever? No. Smart? Not really. And 19 students are facing felony charges of placing false bombs and may not be marching down the aisle on graduation day, either.

Met with only slightly lesser over-reaction were the three students  at Haldane High School in Cold Spring who created chalk outlines splattered with red liquid to resemble blood. Hilarious. The yucksters were slapped with criminal trespass charges but WILL be at the grad ceremonies. (It's a bit bizarre that this caused a calamity, considering real police don't even use chalk outlines...it was solely an invention of movies and TV shows.)

This didn't all happen in one year, of course. It's a cumulative effect. Last year at this time, at a high school in Orlando, FL, police SWAT teams and helicopters moved in all because of...a toilet paper attack.

There are many other stories dotting the newscape this year, of senior pranks gone wrong or, perhaps, simply misunderstood. Normally I'm all for high school shenanigans and hijinks. Heck, I think people working in corporations should be doing more to disrupt the workday, too. But given today's icy climate against fun and frivolity, I'm not sure it's in any student's best interest to risk going toe to toe with the thin blue line, just to pull off some lame gag that's going to end up on your permanent record.

So as a word to the wise to the incoming Senior Class of 2008, when your time comes to pull on the cap n' gown and grab that sheepskin, be smart. Be wise. And show off that grade point average you worked so hard to get...make sure you're away at college by the time your prank kicks in.

Strafing The Good Word

The Dean of Manchester -- that's not the same as "The Donald" here, he's in the top clergy in the Church of England -- is demanding that Sony withdraw every copy of the over 1 million sold of their PlayStation game "Resistance: Fall of Man". One sequence depicts a bloody shootout in the nave of Manchester Cathedral, which he calls a "virtual desecration". It's the 21st century: maybe they should just assign the gamers "virtual penance." Four Hail Marys and an extra Power Up should be a good start. "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned...but, man...did you see that wicked head shot?!"

Hairorist

White House Resident Bush got a bit of a slap yesterday when the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., ruled that he can't just go around declaring civilians in the USA to be “enemy combatants” and then have the military hang onto them without due process (aka "forever".)Their test case of "civilian" is interesting -- it's one Ali al-Marri, who is actually a citizen of Qatar but was in the US on legitimate business, living with his family and studying computer science at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois when the events of 9/11 occurred. The Justice Department says he's an Al Qaeda sleeper agent. I say the terrorism charges should be dropped but he should be held accountable for that mullet.

Imagination In A Coma

If you haven't seen the final episode of HBO's "The Sopranos" yet, I don't intend to spoil it for you (although there's plenty of spoilage out there on the web to stumble across...) I just want to razz the huge number of people who were upset by the series finale that is airing this week. The viewing public has gotten so used to having their entertainment force-fed to them that when they are faced with being able to use their imaginations in the final moments (and beyond), then they rail that the ending is a "cop out" and that they still demand to know "what happened." Idiots. What do YOU think happened? It's up to you to decide. That's the gift that David Chase and the talented cast and crew behind this fantastic show is handing you, wrapping paper and all. If you read the message boards and blogs, however, the majority of bozos would prefer to have the gift handed to them, unwrapped and with a complete set of instructions as to how to enjoy it. I don't know what it might take to re-spark our country's imagination, but if people don't start using it more, the mindless pap and drivel that Hollywood is serving up these days can only get worse.

Shhh!

The National Safety Council says accidental deaths have gone up 20% over the past 10 years, blaming everything from car accidents to choking. Accidents are the top cause of death for people in the U.S. under the age of 41 (a strange random cutoff point.) The council's president, Alan McMillan, calls it "a silent epidemic" while the rest of us regard it for what it really represents: thinning the herd.