Just Found Out About This...

Spoke to my mom this evening and caught up on their adventures to the wilds of Tampa. She mentioned that a friend of my sister's (who has known her since Jr. High) got a nifty promotion recently (she was also the one that I knew who got hit with that Tsunami over a year ago when it hit Sri Lanka).

Anyway, here's the news story:

"SECRETARY-GENERAL APPOINTS RADHIKA COOMARASWAMY OF SRI LANKA

SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR CHILDREN AND ARMED CONFLICT

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan today announced the appointment of Radhika Coomaraswamy of Sri Lanka as his Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict.

Ms. Coomaraswamy, a lawyer by training and currently Chairperson of the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission, is an internationally known human rights advocate who has done outstanding work as Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women (1994-2003). In her reports to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, she has written on violence in the family, violence in the community, violence against women during armed conflict and the problem of international trafficking. A strong advocate on women’s rights, she has intervened on behalf of countless women throughout the world seeking clarification from Governments in cases involving violence against women.

Ms. Coomaraswamy was appointed Chairperson of the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission in May 2003. She is also the Director of the International Centre for Ethnic Studies in Colombo. She is a member of the Global Faculty of the New York University School of Law and teaches a summer course at New College Oxford University every July. She has published widely, including two books on constitutional law and numerous articles on ethnic studies and the status of women.

Ms. Coomaraswamy has won many awards. These include: The International Law Award of the American Bar association, the Human Rights Award of the International Human Rights Law Group, the Bruno Kreisky Award of 2000, the Leo Ettinger Human Rights Prize of the University of Oslo, Cesar Romero Award of the University of Dayton, the William J. Butler Award from the University of Cincinnati, and the Robert S. Litvack Award from McGill University. In November 2005, in recognition of her service to the country and the world, the President of Sri Lanka conferred on her the title of “Deshamanya”. She is the only woman to have received such a title.

Ms. Coomaraswamy is a graduate of the United Nations International School in New York. She received her B.A. from Yale University, her J.D. from Columbia University, an LLM from Harvard University and honorary PhDs from Amherst College, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Essex."

FURBALL! and Ghosts of Ads Past

OMG! This is a grand-prize winning Angora rabbit! Cheezus H. Christ on a cracker! Are THEY ever friggin' furry! Here's a link to the breeder's website with more pictures!

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One of my NYC flickr.com aquaintances has been taking pictures of "ad ghosts" (like the pic above - ads that were painted on the sides of buildings many moons ago and that have faded over time) around NYC for a while and she posted a website of a gent who took pictures of several of them over the past 15 or so years. I stumbled across another website of his that has pictures of them that he took that exist between 14th and 42nd St. in NYC.

Growing up there and seeing some of them, I occasionally wondered what those places were like and what their stories were and now, all these years later, I find that my interest in discovering stuff like them, "relics of the past" in a way, has grown quite a bit.

Bumble Head Squish

Bumble Head Squish
Originally uploaded by azLee.

That's the Bumble having his head squished by me a la "The Kids in the Hall". I'll probably get to doing that to Rudolph the Red (who knows rain, dear), Yukon Cornelius, and Hermey one of these days.

Anyway, I FINALLY got my ass in gear about getting my rook KoolKote'ed sometime in the next month or two. It desparately needs to be done since I've never had it done in the nearly 9 years I've owned the place and I've no idea when the two previous owners had it done prior to that.

The property manager was stunned that I hadn't had any leaks in the roof after 9 years of not doing anything and the guy who is going to be checkin' out my roof tomorrow laughed in amazement at the same thought. (Or at least I hope he ain't laughing at the amount of money he xan take me for!) I was told by property manager to expect somewhere between $400-$700 for the job (I have a 2100 sq. ft. townhome and I dunno how much of the roof needs to be done) and Zod knows how much it'll be if I need the roof replaced.

Keep yer fingers crossed it doesn't come to that.

Just to Keep Y'all Amused....

...while I continue to try and procrastinate from doing my homework again, I present:

NEW WORDS FOR 2006: Essential vocabulary additions for the workplace and elsewhere.

BLAMESTORMING - Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

SEAGULL MANAGER - A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.

ASSMOSIS - The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.

SALMON DAY - The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.

CUBE FARM - An office filled with cubicles

PRAIRIE DOGGING - When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.

MOUSE POTATO - The on-line, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.

SITCOMs - Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What Yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids.

STRESS PUPPY - A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.

SWIPEOUT - An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.

XEROX SUBSIDY - Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's workplace.

IRRITAINMENT - Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The J-Lo and Ben wedding (or not) was a prime example - Michael Jackson, another.

PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE - The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

ADMINISPHERE - The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.

404 - Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error Message "404 Not Found," meaning that the requested document could not be located.

GENERICA - Features of the American landscape that are exactly the same no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, and subdivisions.

OHNOSECOND - That minuscule fraction of time in which you r! ealize that you've just made a BIG mistake. (Like after hitting send on an email by mistake).

WOOFS - Well-Off Older Folks.

CROP DUSTING - Surreptitiously passing gas while passing through a Cube Farm.

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Just read a mention of this article made by one of our ::ahem:: brilliant Republican senators, Nancy Schaefer of Georgia, who said "Commenting on illegal immigration, Schaefer said 50 million abortions have been performed in this country, causing a shortage of cheap American labor. 'We could have used those people,' she said."

Mack the Show

Just found out that The Roundabout Theatre Company's production of "The Three Penny Opera" is going to open at Studio 54 on March 24th!

And get this for the cast!:
Alan Cumming as Macheath
Jim Dale as Mr. Peachum
Ana Gasteyer as Mrs. Peachum
Cyndi Lauper as Jenny
Nellie McKay as Polly
And also featuring Christopher Innvar as Tiger Brown, Carlos Leon as Filtch, Brian Charles Rooney as Lucy as well as Adam Alexi-Malle, Terry Burrell, Brian Butterick, David Cale, Romain Frugé, John Herrera, Nehal Joshi, Christopher Kenney, Maureen Moore, Brooke Sunny Moriber, Deborah Lew, Valisia Lekae Little, Kevin Rennard and Lucas Steele.
Directed by Scott Elliott and Isaac Mizrahi as the costume designer.

Should be interesting. I wonder how it will turn out?
Here's an article on it on Playbill.com.

Praise Bob!

Link via Screenhead via PistolWhip.com.

Maureen Stapleton R.I.P.

"The Associated Press

NEW YORK -- Maureen Stapleton, the Oscar-winning character actress whose subtle vulnerability and down-to-earth toughness earned her dramatic and comedic roles on stage, screen, and television, died Monday. She was 80.

Stapleton, a longtime smoker who had been living in Lenox, died from chronic pulmonary disease, said her son, Daniel Allentuck.

Stapleton, whose unremarkable, matronly appearance belied her star personality and talent, won an Academy Award in 1981 for her supporting role as anarchist-writer Emma Goldman in Warren Beatty's "Reds," about a left-wing American journalist who journeys to Russia to cover the Bolshevik Revolution.

To prepare for the role, Stapleton said she tried reading Goldman's autobiography, but soon chucked it out of boredom.

"There are many roads to good acting," Stapleton, known for her straightforwardness, said in her 1995 autobiography, "Hell of a Life." "I've been asked repeatedly what the 'key' to acting is, and as far as I'm concerned, the main thing is to keep the audience awake."

Stapleton was nominated several times for a supporting actress Oscar, including for her first film role in 1958's "Lonelyhearts"; "Airport" in 1970; and Woody Allen's "Interiors" in 1978.

Her other film credits include the 1963 musical "Bye Bye Birdie" opposite Ann-Margret and Dick Van Dyke, "Johnny Dangerously," "Cocoon," "The Money Pit" and "Addicted to Love."

In television, she earned an Emmy for "Among the Paths to Eden" in 1967. She was nominated for "Queen of the Stardust Ballroom" in 1975; "The Gathering" in 1977; and "Miss Rose White" in 1992.

Brought up in a strict Irish Catholic family with an alcoholic father, Stapleton left home in Troy, N.Y., right after high school. With $100 to her name, she came to New York and began studying at the Herbert Bergdof Acting School and later at the Actor's Studio, which turned out the likes of Marlon Brando, Paul Newman and Julia Roberts.

Stapleton soon made her Broadway debut in Burgess Meredith's 1946 production of "The Playboy of the Western World."

At age 24, she became a success as Serafina Delle Rose in Tennessee Williams' Broadway hit "The Rose Tattoo," and won a Tony Award.

She appeared in numerous other stage productions, including Lillian Hellman's "Toys in the Attic" and Neil Simon's "The Gingerbread Lady," for which she won her second Tony in 1971.

She starred opposite Laurence Olivier in Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." Stapleton's friendship with Williams was well-known and he wrote three plays for her, but she never appeared in any of them.

Along the way, she led a chaotic personal life, which her autobiography candidly described as including two failed marriages, numerous affairs, years of alcohol abuse and erratic parenting for her two children.

She often said auditioning was hard for her, but that it was just a part of acting, a job "that pays."

"When I was first in New York there was a girl who wanted to play 'St. Joan' to the point where it was scary. ... I thought 'Don't ever want anything that bad," she recalled. "Just take what you get and like it while you do it, and forget it."

Cast throughout her career in supporting roles, Stapleton was content not playing a lead character, Allentuck said.

"I don't think she ever had unrealistic aspirations about her career," he said.

Beside Allentuck, Stapleton is survived by a daughter, Katharine Bambery, of Lenox and a brother, Jack Stapleton, of Troy, N.Y."

I always liked her from the first I saw her in "Airport". I was also lucky enough to catch her as the mother in "The Glass Managerie" at NYC's Circle in the Square theatre along with Rip Torn as her son back in the mid-70's.

The Amazing Erotic Adventures of Georgina Bush!

Welcome to the Amazing Erotic Adventures of Georgina Bush. This is an interactive story in which you get to be George W. Bush, 43rd president of the United States. As leader of the free world, your schedule can be exhausting. You must juggle presidential briefings and panty-shopping, diplomatic sessions and drag-queen karaoke contests.

NOW off to watch Battlestar...

Yet Another Quiz

Encouraging Thinker

Off to watch the season finale of "Battlestar Galactica"!

"Go For a Blue One, Steve; We Only Have Red Wine"

Link also stolen from UltraSparkalicious Dan.

Laugh It Up, Fuzzball!

Too fuckin' funny:

Chewy's blog.

And I'm going to hell for getting a laugh at the last few pics.

Link stolen from UltraSparkalicious Dan.

Live Action Simpsons

P.S. Still a sicklet and not much up for posting

Jack Wild RIP

Just found out about this. I fondly recall watching the Sid and Marty Krofft shows he did back in the 60's as well as seeing Oliver! many times.




Oliver! Oscar Nominee Wild Dies at 53.

"By Stephen M. Silverman and Liz Corcoran

Actor Jack Wild, who played the Artful Dodger as a teenager in the 1968 Best Picture Oscar winner Oliver! before going on to star on TV's H.R. Pufnstuf, died of cancer in London, his agent announced Thursday. He was 53.

Wild was only 16 when he was nominated for his supporting actor role in the Dickens musical, in which he sang the familiar songs "Consider Yourself" and "I'd Do Anything." He then went on to star in the American children's TV series and in several films before his career began to derail, in part because of excessive drinking from an early age, reports Reuters.

"Jack died peacefully at midnight last night after a long battle with oral cancer," said agent Alex Jay. "He always said he was an entertainer. He wanted (Scott Joplin's ragtime tune) 'The Entertainer' to be played at his funeral."

Ron Moody, who costarred with Wild as Fagin in Oliver!, tells PEOPLE: "I think he was a great performer. He had enormous potential and it is a sad loss."

Wild, also a heavy smoker, was diagnosed with cancer in 2001 and underwent an operation in 2004 to remove part of his tongue and several vocal cords. As a result he lost his speech, but appeared on stage after the surgery miming his part in a pantomime.

Last year he married his long-term partner Claire."

For Your Amusement

A New 30-Second Bunny Theatre Troop Flick!

King Kong in 30 seconds, re-enacted by bunnies