OK, it's time somebody said something. I can't take it anymore.

Frank Caliendo should have stuck with MADtv. God almighty. I've had enough of him. I thought his John Madden impression was great. In fact no one did it better. That was his trademark. His signature. He was the 'Madden' guy. Fox Sports picked him up to do that impression for Sunday games which was awesome.

Frank then decided to expand his repertoire. He did a great Dubya impression. in fact one of the better ones I've seen. But quite honestly, he was too fat to portray the Prez. This is the point where he should have stopped and faded away into obscurity.

TBS decided to pick him and his impressions up for a few specials and a series...of nothing but sketches of him doing his impressions. Hold up. Stop right there. OK, he's good at one or two, but he's really stepping outside his ability. He added a few new ones that were not bad when they weren't totally generic like Robert DeNiro & Dr. Phil.

FrankTV was a colossal bust and yet, TBS insists that they are "very funny" More like "higly dubious"

But honestly, you cant build a sketch comedy show on one man's impressions alone. There simply isn't enough material.

Mostly his impressions all started to run together. When you can figure out exactly who it is he's trying to impersonate, you realize that all of his impressions sound the exact same.

The culmination of this genericism was when I saw a Dish Network commercial with him talking to himself as Charles Barkley (or so we're meant to believe). That impression sounded so mealy and generic and phoned in. At first, I genuinely couldn't tell who it was supposed to be. I thought with the makeup, maybe it could be the Round Mound of Rebound, but it just didn't sound like him. I've met Charles Barkley. I know his Alabama drawl. It doesn't sound anything like that. In fact, I think that impression was a little condescending. If it wasn't meant to be poking fun at him, I think Sir Charles should be a little offended. (Not that I'm defending Charles Barkley at all. I still think he's an ass.)

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2HWqM_gWEo" target="frankcaliendoyoutube"><img src="http://www.waldoland.com/images/blogimages/frankcaliendodishnetwork.jpg" alt="Frank Caliendo Dish Network Commercial 2"></a>


Nowadays, every time I see Frank Caliendo doing an impression, I'm like, "Yeah, ok. It's you. Ha ha. We get it. Whatever. <Click>" :|
Just give up. Go away.

Labels: Advertising, Comedy, TV

You know, I have been watching Coming To America lately. It's been on cable a few times in the last week. I had forgotten how truly funny that movie actually is. Certainly I pick up on a lot more humor than I did when I first saw it when I was 8.

That shit's got some great scenes in it. Like the one featuring Randy Watson & Sexual Chocolate.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoS8j9eNMZU" target="sexualchocolate"><img src="http://www.waldoland.com/images/blogimages/sexualchocolate.jpg" /></a>

Every time I leave a group of people, that's how I'm going to do it. I know my Uncle Wayne already does it, but that's way too funny for him to keep all for himself. I know the white people at work won't get it, but that's half the fun. :)

Wow, the girl that played Lisa in it, Shari Headley, my god what a stunningly gorgeous woman. Oh, my god she is beautiful. Why haven't we seen more of her? I just looked her up on IMDB. It looks like she's done a lot of one-times on TV episodes here and there over the years. And a lot of Soaps. Stuff I don't admit I watch. I don't understand why she didn't do more feature films. As beautiful as she is, she could have been a great star.

Hehe, and Eriq LaSalle. Forever playing a prick. At least in ER, he's a magnanimous prick.

Labels: Comedy, Fun, Hot Bitches, Movies

Have you seen the commercials for Nutrisystem with Jillian Barberie?

They say she lost 41 pounds. Did you hear me, butterfly? 41 pounds!!! When was she EVER that big? Don't you think we would have noticed that shit (and complained about it) by now? As much as she's on TV? Come on.

Did you see that photoshopped-ass before picture? There's no frikkin' way She could have snuck and got that big. Who are you trying to bullshit? Maybe you lost 41 pounds in your tits!


Even better is the one with Larry The Cable Guy. "I lost 50 pounds with Nutrisystem" I got news for ya, Larr. Yer still a fatshit.


Who says there's no truth in advertising?

Labels: Advertising, Fitness, Health, Hot Bitches, Rants, TV

I get home and flip on my laptop. I look up and there's an alert from Apple. I have new downloads available. I open the dialog and, voila. Safari version 3.1 (525.13) is ready for download!

Apple finally released a version of Safari for Windows that doesn't crash INSTANTLY!

Yay.

Thank God. It's been months since Apple released a version that didn't crash within 3seconds of starting up. I haven't been able to do successful Safari development or testing in months. That's really great when you're about to release a large scale production website. Uh, we hope it works.

Everybody and their momma would tell Apple about it. Apple would keep releasing Safari like it worked. We'd all fire up Safari and guess what? Same thing.

Apple: "It works now."
    Users: "Uh, no it doesn't."
Apple: "OK, it works now."
    Users: "Uh, no it doesn't."
Apple: "How about now?"
    Users: "Nope. Nothin'. Still broke."
Apple: "Now?"
    Users: "Nada."
Apple: "I said it works. Now leave me alone!"
    Users: "Hello? Is anyone there?"

Labels: Technology, Web Development, Website, Work

Finally! It's been agonizing. I've been trying to jailbreak my brand new iPod Touch 32GB for the last couple of weeks. In fact, I've been trying with no success since the day I bought it.

Ironically enough, the first time I did it successfully, nearly right out of the box, using ZiPhone. Sweet, right? I dunno. I was watching some video on YouTube on how to jailbreak the 1.1.4 firmware. Of course me, having A.D.H.D. a short attention span and no patience, I got to doing half the steps before the video even mentioned them. For example, when it said, "Close iTunes" I didn't close iTunes. When it said, "iTunes will show you a dialog, just dismiss it and continue." I decided to Restore my iPod back to the 1.1.4 firmware after I had jailbroken it. Ooops, well whatever.

I figured I'd just jailbreak it again, right? Wrong. I tried jailbreaking it using the exact same ZiPhone method and ... holy shit! Oh, man did I eff this thing up. I saw the diagnostic info as usual during the alternate boot sequence, just like I did when I jailbroke it before, but this time when it got up to the MAC Address of the device, all I got was an infinite loop of messages reading, "BSD root: md0, major 2 minor 0"

Awww shit!

It took me a good long while to figure out how to even get my iPod to even boot normally after that. Dammit!

So I spent the last 3 weeks trying, ever so futily, to jailbreak my iPod. Every method I came across said, "Oh, that method doesn't work for the 32GB" or "This method only works on the iPhone, not the iPod" Oy vey! Most methods were derivations of the same method. Most told me to launch some combination of iPhuc and ZiPhone multiple concurrent times. Some of them told me to downgrade to a lower version of the firmware, jailbreak it and then upgrade through an installed app.

All of them claim to have been confirmed. Most of them even had video proving it. None of them worked for me. Every single time I get to the point where I'm trying to actually jailbreak it, I got the BSD error.

All of a sudden this Saturday I decided to go out and see of there was newer version of ZiPhone. Sure enough, there was! They must have released it in like the last week. Yay! I downloaded it installed it. I ran the jailbreak and sunnuvabitch it worked! I'm so happy.

The first thing I installed was BSD subsystem and OpenSSH. I don't actually know why, but that's what they tell me so I did. I installed all kinds of neat stuff. iPhysics is the most addictive game EVER. It's great. I've got all kinds of guitar and piano stuff for the musician on the go. Now that I've unlocked my iPod, I can install a plethora of meaningless crap. It's awesome!

Unfortunately whenever you jailbreak an iPod, it wipes all of your music and settings, so now I have to wait another 3 hours for my music to finish sync'ing. Oh well. Still worth it.

Labels: iPod, iTunes, Music

Damn, Salma Hayek has a killer body. Every time I see it, it's just a thing of beauty. Makes me damn near want to cry sometimes.

Every time From Dusk Till Dawn comes on, I am compelled to tune in if for nothing else than the table dance of Santanico Pandemonium. Ooooooowieee! Now that's what I call a fucking show!

<a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=zvCTkBKRggc" target="youtube"><img src="http://www.waldoland.com/images/blogimages/salmadusktilldawn.jpg" alt="Salma Hayek" /></a>

Labels: Hot Bitches, Movies

So, I'm still smoke free. Congratulate me.

Something I've discovered about myself. It's not so much the nicotine or the smoke that I craved. It was the ritual of smoking itself that attracted me.

It was everything about actually doing it that I liked.

It starts with buying the pack. Knowing your brand. Being able to walk into your local Wawa, stepping up to the counter and asking for your brand. Anything else is unacceptable. No substitutions, no compromises. Ever. Even though 100 other people ask for that same pack of Marlboro Menthol Light Box a day, it was still something that was uniquely you. Your brand. Your flavor. Your style. You.

Once you pay, you can't even open your pack until you've prepared it. Packing your cigarettes by turning the pack on the butt end and slamming them against the counter repeatedly until you're satisfied. Maybe there's no counter space. The back of your wrist or the heel of your hand will do in a pinch. You've got to compact every bit of tobacco in those cigarettes, making every drag even more potent.

Then the unveiling. To peel the cellophane from the top of the box, you don't even have to look to see where the starter tab or the perforation is. You've done this a million times before. It's almost natural instinct. In that all too familiar circular motion you whip that plastic off the top and don't even hesitate to discard it. You flick the roof of the cardboard box open with the edge of your thumb. You rip out the foil keeping that magic fresh. Again discarded. You're so close. Nothing can stop you now.

You hold that pack to your bottom lip. You can feel the soft cotton of the filters pressed against your lips, packed so firmly in the box like 20 little class 'A' soldiers, all standing at attention. You draw your first whiff of the box. The menthol rises up your nose and fills the space behind your eyes. Mmm, they're fresh. Nothing worse than a stale smoke.

Your teeth, a precision instrument, select the first soldier to fall. They isolate a cigarette from the center of the pack and slide him out slowly. The ghost of James Dean is with you. He can see the slow cool forming at the tip of your lips. The box is closed and 19 soldiers are left standing.

You whip out your faithful Zippo from its place of keeping, the fifth pocket. He knows his job. He is the catalyst. All that came before was for not without him. A little flare is all he desires. You whip him open with the coolest of ease. Roll his striker and he's ready to go. You cock your head ever so slightly and take that first drag. That long slow drag. James would be proud. The smoke fills your lungs. A tingle passes through your body. Your muscles relax. The tension that's been building at the base of our neck begins to loosen. You feel light-headed. Almost dizzy. The nicotine flows through your body like a rushing flood. From your shoulders to the small of your back to your toes. You exhale and slam the zippo shut. You remember this feeling. It's been this good to you so many times before.


Damn, that was some good writing, huh? I'm making smoking sound like a supermarket romance novel. Cool. Shit I was on a roll.


Anyway, I smoked because it was something to do. I smoked at work because it got me away from my computer screen if only for a few minutes. When I smoked at home, I never smoked in the house because I never wanted my furniture to smell like an ashtray. I liked having the discipline of that rule. I would always smoke outside. I would always so out on my deck and smoke, though in the colder winter months, I've taking to smoking on my front steps.

Even smoking on the deck was a ritual. I had my favorite smoking deck chair I would sit in. I had an ashtray that i liked that I would empty every so often. Maybe I would choose to sit on my air conditioner. Maybe I would choose to lean over the rail of the deck. I would look up at the stars and contemplate the universe and everything else around me.

In summers I sit out on the deck with my guitar. I would use my zippo as a slide, sitting in my chair playing blues, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes all night. Those are some of my most relaxing times. Giving concerts for no one but myself.

When I'm deep in thought about work (whether it be professional or recreational work), sometimes my brain goes into overdrive. I need the smoke break to calm my mind down. The mild euphoria lets only a couple of thoughts seep through at a time. Not the standard hundreds, or even the thousands in overdrive mode. It allows me to slow down and actually let my brain process the thoughts it had. Kinda like speed reading. Yes, you just read this book in 12 minutes, but how much of it did you actually retain?

The biggest ritual for me was driving. My brain knows that the first thing I do after finding a good radio station is to light one up. I roll down the window a crack. Cigarette in left hand. Right hand on the wheel. When it's raining, the window is rolled up, and the cigarette switches hands, allowing me to put my ashes in the ashtray in my truck. I actually had to learn to drive with only my left hand so that I could smoke.

I even had special smokes for special occasions. I used to have clove cigarettes (Djarum) for parties and very long road trips. I've been smoking cloves since I was 16. I could rarely find them and I could sparsely get them then, so they were always reserved for special occasions.


Without the ritual of smoking, I feel kind of empty. Like, now what do I do? Without smoking, I don't really have an excuse to visit my deck and contemplate the universe. It's too cold for blues nights. How do I slow my brain down when I'm busy? What will I do when I need a break at work? Even driving, my brain wants to smoke because it knows that's always what it's done.

My biggest fear is the future. You already know I regressed at the bar last week. Well I'm going out to Kildare's this Friday and I'm debating whether to smoke or not. My brain just won't let me drink and not smoke. But a lot of people only smoke when they drink. Maybe it's ok. I don't know. It seems like if I only smoke when I'm out drinking, it's still an improvement. The question is, will I start to go out drinking more? Hehe.

Labels: Philosophizing

I was out last night at the Fox And Hound for an impromptu happy hour. I just didn't feel right drinking and not smoking. Almost two weeks without one and I caved. Like a schlep I bummed cigarettes off of everyone there. I must have had at least six last night. My brain just wouldn't let me drink and not smoke.

So it's a new day. And I still have no desire to smoke. If I can limit myself to just while I'm drinking, I think even that is an improvement. I think I'll be ok, "quitting" As Mark Twain said, "Quitting smoking is easy. I've done it a thousand times."

I'll quit again tomorrow. :)

Labels: Health

So I had a revelation today. I discovered a problem of mine. I keep waiting on the world to change. I took a look back at a few of my personal relationships over the past couple of years. I realized that I was always waiting for the other person to change. Whether it be changing an opinion, a viewpoint, their personality, whatever.

I always feel like I'm evolving. I'm always willing to take that one step forward. Because of that, it seems, that I assume everyone else is willing, too. What I discovered is that just because I'm ready doesn't meant that they are, no matter how much I want it. No matter how much I want them to be.

Case in point: With Jade, I kept waiting on her to be a better person. I had faith. I expected her to be. She even tried. But she wasn't ready. She wasn't able to let go of herself long enough to realize that she wasn't the center of the universe. I kept waiting on her to change and while I was waiting, she ruined me. It was my own fault that I let her do that to me. I couldn't see her for what she was, only what I expected her to be.

Next case in point: I recently asked someone out who works at the same company as I do. I won't mention her name here. She turned me down. Though I wasn't mad, I was kind of puzzled as to why she said no. She stated as one of her reasons that she wasn't willing to breach "the friend boundary" especially with someone she works with. I suppose I understand that. Her friendship is very important to me. I remember stating in public many times, "Don't dip your pen in the company ink." Logically, I should have heeded my own advice, but I couldn't help the way I felt.

I started to analyze her response a little. I kept thinking to myself in stark contrast to my own advice, "We can make it work. It doesn't have to be awkward if we don't let it." Did you notice the pronoun in there, we? I discovered playing back in my head that her response was about her. She wasn't willing to cross the friend boundary. She was uncomfortable dating someone at work. She wasn't willing to put our friendship in jeopardy.

Just because I was willing to cross those lines for the prospect of something more than friendship, something better, why should I expect that she would? I think it's probably a little arrogant of me to expect that. If she was willing, that's great. If she wasn't, that's her decision, not my expectation. She has her own set of rules that she lives her life by. I shouldn't impose myself upon that.

Final case in point: Sydd. I wouldn't talk to Sydd for years because when I was 21 and he was 21, I was semi-successful. I had my life together (or at least was on the track). I had a good job and was living on my own, making a little bit of coin. I expected he should be doing the same. When I discovered that not only he wasn't, but he was still continuing in the same patterns that had gotten him into deep shit as a teenager, I dropped him. We had a knock-down, drag-out on the phone, and I didn't speak to him again for years. I expected him to do better because I was doing better.

Sydd was the same as he ever was. I had expected so much better. He just wasn't ready to do better at that point. Why did I expect so much? Maybe I always thought, "Well, if I can do it, why can't you?" I can't hold other people to my own standards. Everybody's different and everybody's got their own path. Thankfully, we're starting to get back in touch with one another in recent days. He's doing better. I'm doing better. I feel we'll be better friends now.



I don't know. It's just a surprising pattern I've discovered in my personal relationships. I keep expecting the world to change and what I've realized is that people are who they are. It's not my job to change them. And it shouldn't be my expectation that they will. In fact, I know now, that some people ain't never gonna change. It's not incumbent upon me to expect anything from anyone.

Maybe this sounds cynical. It's really not. It's actually a more positive outlook. I can still hope for people. I can still believe good things about people. It's just not my place to impose or expect anything.

Labels: Life, Philosophizing

Of all people, my mother sent this one to me.

MediaTakeOut.com just got its hands on an excerpt from the tell-all book of Philadelphia-based radio personality Goldengirl (whose real mane is Lisa Natson) entitled Sex & Celebrities: The Truth, the Whole Truth, The Naked Truth.

...

Lil Kim and I were touching, rubbing, and before I knew it, we were playing in each other's pussy with our fingers. Her ass was so soft, I kept touching and grabbing it. I'd never felt anybody's ass as soft as mine, and her titties were huge and pretty. Her nipples got hard instantly as I licked all over them. She was rubbing my clit and grabbing my ass.

She pulled me on top of her, and somehow made her clit press a button on mine. We were grinding clits, and it felt unbelievably good. I figured she knew what she was doing, cause my pussy was dripping wet. We were both moaning, and I didn't think she could feel my pussy juices, because as she slid her fingers between my lips.

When she felt how wet she had gotten me, she got a surge of adrenaline and said, "Oh my God, girl, you're so wet, let me..." and she leaned up and grabbed my leg to motion me to turn my ass to her face. I did, and we were in the sixty-nine position, with her on the bottom.

...

LAWD HAVE MERCY!!!

True or not. I don't care. This was the best story ever told. Hallelujah! Holy shit!

Read the rest of this excerpt here. I swear to God, you'll grizz your shorts.

EXPLOSIVE: FEMALE RADIO PERSONALITY WRITES ABOUT HER INTIMATE ENCOUNTER WITH LIL KIM (PARENTAL DISCRETION IS ADVISED)

Labels: Hot Bitches, Pop Culture

God Dammit!

Vadim and I went to Wrongway (Subway) for lunch today. Jeff and RC were trying their gym-during-lunchtime thing, so it was just us.

I was excited about trying their pastrami sandwich for the first time. Yeah, throw some swiss cheese, mustard and pickles on there. make it like a real deli sandwich. And toast that bitch, too.

I sat down to eat my sandwich. I took one bite and ... Ecch! Pbbtt! Phooey! That shis was nasty. My God, it was like where there should have been flavor in the meat, there was nothing but more salt. Uccch! A huge fucking salt sandwich! I couldn't even eat half of that.

Just goes to show, if you want real deli, fucking go to Michael's. Fuck all that other shit.

Labels: Food