Musings From New York

OK, I haven't trawled the Net extensively looking for any other postings, but I still think it's Barney. Here's why:

(WARNING: SPOILERS!!)

After the funeral for Moe's Taven, Moe points out the gay bar across the street (I forgot the name). Barney, Lenny & Carl head over, while Homer stays back ("I can't go into a gay bar! I'm too fat!"). Barney is never seen again in the episode, whereas Lenny & Carl have several scenes.

Most telling: in the end (ie: the scene that plays along with the credits), everybody's back at Moe's ... Marge & Homer are singing a duet, Lenny, Carl, Anonymous Regular (seen earlier in the episode) and Moe are in the bar. Where's Barney??

It's obvious: Barney stayed in the gay bar!!

There wasn't any mention of Smithers, Patty/Selma, or Principal Skinner. There were a couple of scenes with Chief Wiggum, but nothing to nail the issue on him.

PS: When the issue first came to light back in July '04, Barney was my first choice :-)

I remember reading that the closet gay in Springfield would be revealed in January. Well, it's the last weekend of January, and this is what the new episode's about. Not very revealing, is it?

They're like the Daily Show of the entertainment industry. No matter how ridiculous a story may seem, there's a little grain of thruth that makes you go "Hmmm"!

If anyone's enthu-ed enough to bake and make icing ... this should be a hit at any Superbowl party!

Apparently, this sign is offensive to deaf people (I think it means BS in sign language).

Isn't it frightening that these people are asked to decide the fate of others?

Three cheers for being saved from extinciton!

Hip! Hip! Hurrah!

Hip! Hip! ... Ah, forget it.

This has to be the funniest ... and the most alarming ... piece of news from the UK in a long, long time.

More funny than alarming, I guess.

Looks like the villains have been exposed.

(first time I've talked about a video game on my blog!)

I bought Halo 2 as a birthday gift to myself (hey, any excuse will do). Played a bit of the campaign on Saturday ... but by far, the best part is the multiplayer mode on XBox Live. I don't think I'm going to be playing much of the single-player mode any more!

One very noticeable change from Halo is the elimination of the health bar - it's all shields now. If your shields drop, it'll only take a shot (maybe 2) to kill you. Which means a lot of the single player campaign is played slowly and very carefully - a marked difference from my playing style in other FPS games. The multiplayer mode is pretty much just pure carnage. Shoot anything that moves, and try to kill as many as you can before you get killed yourself. It's fun, but I wonder if that distracts from tactics in squad-based games like Capture the Flag. Only one way to find out!

Gowri sent me this absolutely massive birthday cake ... tiramisu, I believe.

I don't think I've had cake on my birthday since I was .... 17, I think! Mom always baked one.

Thanks a ton, Gowri!

1973 - The Watergate trial begins

1925 - Gerald Durrell was born
1935 - Elvis Presley was born
1937 - Shirley Bassey was born
1941 - Graham Chapman was born
1942 - Stephen Hawking was born
1946 - Robby Krieger was born
1947 - David Bowie was born
1977 - I was born

1324 - Marco Polo died
1642 - Gallileo Galilei died
1941 - Robert Baden-Powell died
1991 - Steve Clark died
1996 - François Mitterrand died

Go, go, go shorty
It's your birthday
We gon' party like it's yo birthday
We gon' sip Bacardi like it's yo birthday
...

Or not.

Sigh.

I was browsing my blog's archives, looking for a link I'd posted earlier. And the Gooooogle (how many O's does it have?) ads read: "Buy Harry Potter E-book 6. We already have Half-Blood Prince. Buy any and download it now for $7.95"

I clicked on the link, and came across a website offering Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince in electronic format for $7.95

Does this seem odd to anyone? Has anyone heard of this website? How bogus is it? Is it piracy, false advertising, or just too good to be true? Why wouldn't people buy it for 8 bucks, and then print it onto a hard copy.

The company's obviously a Google Ads subscriber (ie: they pay Google to display the ads) ... does Google do a background check on these guys?

You know how some actors (and presumably, actresses) just don't seem to go with certain movies? For example:

• Robert De Niro in Shark Tales
• Arnie (I can't spell his surname off the top of my head!) in Twins, Junior, and Jingle All The Way

Well ... prepare for the next generation of miscasts.

I can't wait for this to release!

Or pretty darn close.

BTW, is it just me, or do the subjects in the photos have this "Please kill me now! Please!" look on their faces?

Pam: "I'm going to be Pam Martha Focker!"
Gaylord: "Did you meet my cousins? Randy & Arnie?"

That, and several other (supposed) jokes litter the script like smoking debris from a once-proud edifice of humor.

Meet The Fockers is about Gaylord Focker, with fiance & in-laws-to-be, meeting the Focker family. Unwisely, the movie chooses to work the chemistry of the first movie - the hostility between Jack Brynes (De Niro) & Gaylord (Stiller). Gaylord apparently still has issues with his to-be-FIL, and goes out of his way (though not as much as in Meet The Parents) to please Jack. This worked great in the first movie, and might have been great in the sequel - except that the sequel chose to distract itself with two 60's-hangover-personalities (the Fockers).

The result is that the script has to divide it's time between the Jack-Gaylord tension (acceptance issues), the Gaylord-Parents tension (conformity issues), and the Jack-Parents tension ("I-don't-even-know-what" issues). Doesn't quite cut it, does it? Too many situations - so little time!

The performances weren't particularly noteworthy ... the only one that did stand out to an extent was Dustin Hoffman as Bernie Focker. Robert De Niro in particular looked like he was ready to put the whole comedy genre behind him and move on back to Italian/Mobster films.

Oh the movie was definitely funny - I laughed quite a bit. But be warned - if you didn't like Meet The Parents, you definitely won't like Meet The Fockers. And if you did like Meet The Parents ... well, you might be slightly disappointed by Meet The Fockers.

But then again, what's the choice for a funny holiday-ish movie this New Years' weekend? No wonder the movie went to #1 in the US.

Don't get me wrong: I hope this drive works. But seriously folks, this is Bangalore, and I seriously doubt the effectiveness of these efforts. They're not the first, you know. I remember there was this "Traffic Cop" who famously stood out on MG Road and caught & ticketed folks on the spot. Did that make any difference?

That was a rhetorical question - of course it didn't!

Please join me in a moment of silence to the man who has made the world laugh every Sunday with his column in the Miami Herald. These are his last words.

Mercifully, he's not stopped blogging.

I spent a gruelling 11 hours walking around in New Orleans until the clock struck one (most other revellers got away with minor injuries). I have some photos. However, given the family-oriented nature of this blog, those photos will never see the light of day.

I was supposed to go into NO again today, but Sam came down with some cuttlefish allergy - made his head look like an over-ripe tomato. So I don't have any photos of New Orleans to put up. :-(

I also got to see Meet The Fockers last night. Review coming soon.