Taking a break

RandomReality is taking a blog break. The journal will return the week of June 6.

Live Aid 2 might actually happen!!!!

And the Spice Girls might reunite! Oh dare to dream!

http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Music/05/26/britain.spice.reut/index.html

Dear Tom Cruise: You are a moron

Tom Cruise, an ardent Scientologist, criticizes Brooke Shields for using anti-depressants after her bout with severe post-partum depression. Said she could have cured herself using vitamins.

Dear Tom: You are a moron. Depression is a biological condition. Sure, vitamins help and exercise and prayer and positive thinking. But mostly, it is a problem of brain chemistry.

Oh wait. You are a Scientologist. You believe that aliens actually live in our brains and control us. Yes folks, that is what Scientologists learn once they pay all that money and achieve all those "levels." They are deeply suspicious of psychiatrists and psychologists. Perhaps because they would tell Scientologists they are CRAZY????

http://www.nydailynews.com/05-23-2005/news/story/312030p-266946c.html

Jessica and Nick are NOT getting divorced

Today there was a rumor that said Jessica Simpson had filed for divorce. But an hour later, Simpson told Us Weekly the rumor wasn't true. So there.

http://www.usmagazine.com/

My ranting letter to the cable company

(Who wants to bet that the Cable Guy actually is using my old cable box? And he is using it to watch porn.)

Random Reality
May 24, 2005

TO: Large Cable Company 

Research Department

  This letter is in reference to the $489.94 fee that was charged to me in error on my Large Cable Company Account account. I recently moved into a new apartment (in the same complex) and on April 25 at 9 a.m., my cable was installed in the new apartment. My old apartment was TKTKTKTTK. At both the old and new apartments, I had Digital Cable with HBO on the Digital Silver Package Promotion.
  When Installer X arrived at my new apartment on April 25, he told me he had to take my old Digital Cable box and give me a new one. I asked why I couldn't just keep the old box, since it was working fine. He said he was told to give me a new box.
  Installer X hooked up my cable. Then he told me that his orders did not mention the old cable box on my bill. He suggested I keep the old box. This sounded fishy to me. I told him I only wanted Digital Cable on ONE of my TV sets, since I was trying to keep costs low. At my old apartment, I only had Digital Cable on the one set.
  Installer X mentioned again that he only had paperwork for one box. I told him I did NOT want to be charged for anything I had not ordered, and I did NOT want a second Digital Cable box. I thought his suggestion was odd, but had a lot of unpacking to do and was busy.
  He took my old Digital Cable box away. Where did that box go? I have no idea. He took it with him. There is only one, yes one, Digital Cable box in my apartment. The second TV is hooked up to basic cable. You can come and look.
  Yesterday, I received my bill and nearly had a heart attack when it said I owed $550.99. I called and reached TKTK at 7 p.m. after being on hold for about 15 minutes. She told me I needed to fax them RIGHT AWAY with my work order from April 25. I explained that I am an ordinary customer in an apartment and do not have a fax machine handy. Plus, I had to go look for the work order.
  It bothers me that the implication is that I did something wrong and that I have to prove my story, when clearly, Installer X didn't do his job and was trying to cut corners. Ask him where that Digital Cable box went. I don't have it and never did.
  I insist that the charge for $489.94 be removed from my bill IMMEDIATELY. Right now, I am so irritated with Large Cable Company that I am pondering cutting all my cable and going back to a TV with the rabbit ears. At least that would not cost me $489.94.

More on Brit and KFed

This is a review of "Chaotic" from one of my favorite web sites, Television Without Pity. They get waaaay more in-depth in analyzing the show than I did. :)

http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/story.cgi?show=149&story=8012&page=3&sort=&limit=

Tom Cruise gushes about Katie Holmes on "Oprah"

Ick.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/TV/05/24/people.cruise.ap/index.html

Double ick.

http://www2.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/200505/tows_past_20050523.jhtml

She was FIVE years old when he was in "Risky Business."

Bobby Brown needs to find some new friends!

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=783155

Am I too jaded to believe in "true love?"

Is it just me or is anyone else out there just a tad suspicious of how quickly and exuberantly Tom Cruise if proclaiming his love for Katie Holmes?

http://www.gawker.com/

Nope, it's not just me....

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gossip/story/311235p-266281c.html

Listen, people. It is LOVE. Got it? Love. If Oprah says so, it must be true. Plus, the both like to scuba dive. So there.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/05/19/showbuzz/index.html#0

Cruise on Holmes: 'Magnificent'

NEW YORK (AP) -- Tom Cruise is smitten with the charms of Katie Holmes.

"I love this woman," Cruise says in an interview to air Monday on "Access Hollywood." "She's magnificent."

The couple were photographed together in Rome last month, where Cruise received a lifetime achievement award at the David di Donatello Awards, the Italian equivalent of the Oscars.

When asked why he appears to be less inhibited about showing his affection for Holmes in public than in his past relationships, Cruise tells "Access Hollywood" co-anchor Billy Bush: "I am so happy and I am not going to pretend or hide it or be shy. This woman is magnificent."

Cruise's marriages to Mimi Rogers and Nicole Kidman ended in divorce. He dated Penelope Cruz, but the pair split last year. Holmes and actor Chris Klein recently called off their engagement, after dating for five years.

The 42-year-old Cruise says he shares many common interests and hobbies with the 26-year-old Holmes.

"We go scuba diving together," he says. "She likes all the stuff that I love to do, she's funny and smart."

He added: "I've always seen how talented she was."

Cruise stars in Steven Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" and Holmes co-stars with Christian Bale in "Batman Begins." Both films open next month.

Abysmal ratings for "Britney and Kevin: Chaotic"

Ahhh. Such a SHAME. And I really thought the show would do well. HA!

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/11690716.htm

Spears update

• Britney Spears' UPN reality show, Britney and Kevin: Chaotic, had a microscopic 3.4 mil viewers for its Tuesday debut, finishing last in its 9 p.m. time slot.

The new "Star Wars" movie

I saw the new "Star Wars" movie at a matinee today in which the teen at the ticket counter tried doing Jedi mind tricks on me as I paid for my ticket (really) and the counter kids were dressed with light sabers.

Wow. The new movie is good, but it is really SAD in parts. I mean SAD. As in, I burst out crying at one point. We al know that Anakin becomes Darth Vader but it is pretty darn nasty as it happens.

I won't reveal anymore except to say that once again, Yoda kicks butt!

Britney and Kevin are "Chaotic."

And they made my head hurt.

http://www.upn.com/shows/britney_spears/

Brit and KFed debuted their reality television show tonight. I watched and have lost brain cells because of it. As my fans know, I am intrigued with most things pop culture including Brit and her dog, Bit Bit. And her baby in utero. And her husband, who wore a sweatsuit proclaiming him a "Pimp Daddy" after their wedding. Classy!

However, this show made me lose precious brain cells and on top of that, the shaky camera work made me a bit dizzy. I will recount to you now, various details from the premiere episode of "Britney and Kevin: Chaotic."

She asks: "Can you handle my truth?"

I answer: "No."

Britney is perhaps the worst handi-cam operator ever. She can't figure out how to zoom, her hand is always shaking and sometimes the camera is sideways. Thank God someone on her staff had the forethought to splice in concert footage and interviews of Brit. Otherwise, we would have been left with: Brit making pig noses. Yes, our little Southern gal has a penchant for sticking her figure on her nose, turning it up and filming herself.

In another scene, she focuses on two blue lumps.

"They look like boobs, but they're not," Brit tells us. "They're my knees!"

Brit says she was lonely in her huge London hotel suite whilst on tour in Europe so she invited Kevin Federline, a.k.a. KFed, whom she had known exactly FIVE DAYS. Yes, fans, FIVE DAYS.

Before KFed arrives from LA, Brit decides to interview everyone on her staff about their thoughts on love, marriage and commitment.

"I don't believe in marriage either," Brit tells her hairdresser. "I was married, but that was a different story." (Referring to her 54 hour marriage in Vegas.)

Oh, the beautiful irony! In just five more minutes of shaky camera footage we will see how wrong our Britney was! She DOES find marriage after all!

More shots up Britney's nose.

Brit informs us that she has been hurt before. She is a Bitter Betty.

There is lots of footage of Brit getting her makeup done. She extols the virtues of glitter eyeshadow.

Concert footage of her dancing and lip-syncing.

KFed shows up. Her bodyguard does not like the looks of him. Smart man. Within two days, Brit and KFed have consummated their love. Three times. In one day. Yes! She informs her personal assistant, Felicia, and by proxy, we the viewing public, about her carnal adventures whilst she runs on the treadmill. Meaning she TELLS us all about sex while running on the treadmill. She didn't HAVE sex on the treadmill.

At least I don't think so.

Kylie Minogue has breast cancer

Well, this is sad. I will think good thoughts for her. It just goes to show that not even thin, gorgeous, blonde pop superstars are immune from breast cancer. It is a terrible disease.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/05/17/kylie.cancer/index.html

Reviews of U2 concert in Philadelphia

The U2 concert on Saturday, May 14 was AMAZING. Here are excerpts from two of the newspaper reviews. Mine will be posted soonly.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/11655999.htm

Posted on Mon, May. 16, 2005

Great songs also on U2's agenda

By Dan DeLuca
Inquirer Music Critic

The Man Who Would Save the World brought a long to-do list to the sold-out Wachovia Center on Saturday:

Educate date-night U2 fans about the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Don a white headband that uses the Muslim crescent, the Star of David and a crucifix to spell out "CoeXisT."

Discuss how the July '85 Live Aid concert "changed [U2's] life, and set us on a course" leading to One, the organization that intends to "make poverty history."

And - lest even ardent fans get tired of the messianic preaching from a band built around the notion that rock-and-roll is not about rebellion so much as duty ("One life," the song goes, "you got to do what you should") - shut up every once in a while, and sing........

...While standbys such as "I Will Follow" have been jettisoned, they've been replaced by new songs of spiritual seeking such as "Yahweh," or nearly forgotten tunes such as the stately sing-along and show-closer "40."

Of course, U2 isn't entirely about the guy who introduced himself to two young girls - brought them on stage for "Into the Heart" - by saying: "My name's Paul, but I call myself Bono." He got a little help from the locked-in rhythm section of Adam Clayton and the martial beats of the band's Dorian Gray drummer, Larry Mullen Jr.

If you shifted focus from the bloke who dropped bits of Frank Sinatra's "Send in the Clowns," and the Beatles' "Blackbird" into the set, you'd have noticed the guy who calls himself The Edge. He was the one with the skullcap, shooting off sonic projectiles "Bullet the Blue Sky," playing roiling slide-guitar licks on "Beautiful Day" and switching to piano on the fragile "Running to Stand Still." And making it clear that - despite the outsized ambitions of its grandiose front man - U2 is, first and foremost, a great rock-and-roll band.

--

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/11645550.htm

Questions about the television show "24"

I started watching "24" this season for the first time and am sucked into the world of CTU and Agent Jack Bauer. However, as each episode progresses, I find I have more questions. These go beyong the obvious of "when do these people eat, drink and go to the bathroom." Instead, I wonder:

1) How come Jack's cell phone ALWAYS works and he NEVER loses the signal or gets in a bad cell area?

2) How come Bad Guys can't listen in on all his cell phone calls? I thought that was pretty easy to do?

3) Why is there only one surgeon in all of CTU?

4) Why does everyone speak in low tones?

5) Who designed CTU? It looks like warehouse.

6) Why does Jack have to do EVERYTHING?

7) How come no one ever gets stuck in traffic? This is L.A. after all?

8) Does EVERY character on the show have serious mental health issues?

Did Sharon Stone have to go through Parenting Classes?

PROBABLY NOT is my guess!

http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/05/12/showbuzz/index.html#1

Sharon Stone adopts

Sharon Stone has adopted a baby boy.

The baby was born to "unknown and unrelated parents in Texas" on Saturday, Stone's publicist, Cindi Berger, said in a statement Wednesday.

Stone, 47, has named the baby Laird Vonne Stone. The actress has a 4-year-old son, Roan. She and her husband, Phil Bronstein, divorced in 2004 after five years of marriage.

"Mommy and her boys are over the moon," the statement said.

Armpit smell reveals if a person is gay

I think they should add arm-pit sniffing to Speed Dating! Would save everyone time and heartache and is easier than giving show tunes quizzes.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/living/health/11604958.htm

Posted on Tue, May. 10, 2005 
Gay men respond differently to pheromones

RANDOLPH E. SCHMID

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The sexual area of a gay man's brain works a lot like that of a woman when exposed to a particular stimulus, researchers say.

In an experiment, men and heterosexual women sniffed a chemical from the male hormone testosterone. The homosexual men's brains responded differently from those of heterosexual males, and in a similar way to the women's brains.

"It is one more piece of evidence ... that is showing that sexual orientation is not all learned," said Sandra Witelson, an expert on brain anatomy and sexual orientation atthe Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada.

Witelson, who was not part of the research team, said the findings clearly show a biological involvement in sexual orientation.

The study, published in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was done by researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.

They exposed heterosexual men and women and homosexual men to chemicals derived from male and female sex hormones. These chemicals are thought to be pheromones - molecules known to trigger responses such as defense and sex in many animals.

Whether humans respond to pheromones has been debated, although in 2000 American researchers reported finding a gene that they believe directs a human pheromone receptor in the nose.

The brains of different groups responded similarly to ordinary odors such as lavender, but differed in their response to the chemicals thought to be pheromones, lead researcher Ivanka Savic said.

More of the craziness of the soldiers at Abu Ghraib

This is a well-written article about all the nuttiness of the U.S. soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. When did they find the time to have all that sex?

Here are excerpts. Click on the link for the whole article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/10/national/10graner.html?

May 10, 2005

Behind Failed Abu Ghraib Plea, a Tangle of Bonds and Betrayals

By KATE ZERNIKE

In a military courtroom in Texas last week was a spectacle worthy of "As the World Turns": Pfc. Lynndie R. England, the defendant, holding her 7-month-old baby; the imprisoned father, Pvt. Charles A. Graner Jr., giving testimony that ruined what lawyers said was her best shot at leniency; and waiting outside, another defendant from the notorious abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Megan M. Ambuhl, who had recently wed Private Graner - a marriage Private England learned about only days before.

To some, the grave misdeeds at Abu Ghraib, where the three soldiers worked for six months in 2003, have become a twisted symbol of the American military occupation of Iraq. But the scandal is also one rooted in the behavior of military reservists working at the prison, an environment that testimony has portrayed as more frat house than military prison, a place where inmates were routinely left naked and soldiers took pictures of one another simulating sex with fruit.

The reservists' treatment of Iraqi prisoners and their entanglements with one another - pieced together from documents, court testimony, e-mail and interviews - have produced a dark soap opera, one whose episodes have continued to play out in the months since the scandal erupted, and culminated in the Texas courtroom last week.

As with any soap opera, past episodes help explain the most recent.

Private England, who is now waiting for charges to be filed against her again, and Private Graner began dating while they were training with their Army Reserve unit, the 372nd Military Police Company, based in Cresaptown, Md.

A hell-raising young woman from West Virginia, Private England, now 22, was married at 19, on a whim, she told friends, and violated her parents' wishes when she joined the Reserve in high school to make money for college.

Private Graner, 36, a Pennsylvania prison guard and a former marine, had rejoined the military in a burst of patriotism after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

He was fresh from an ugly divorce in 2000. His ex-wife, Staci Morris, had taken out three protective orders against him, and after he was arrested for harassing her in 2001, Private Graner admitted that he had dragged her around by her hair.

He introduced the two women, and Ms. Morris said she felt "selfish relief" that with someone new, her ex-husband would stop being obsessed with her. And she liked Private England, finding her quiet and adoring.

"If he was as charming with her as he is with most women at the beginning, I can understand it," Ms. Morris said. "Charming, compliments, you name it. The things you would love to hear as a young woman."

...

In Iraq, Private England was disciplined several times for sleeping with Private Graner, against military rules. She flouted warnings to stay on the wing where she worked as a clerk, and spent most of her nights in the cellblock where he worked the night shift.

One night in October, he told her to pose for photographs holding a leash tied around the neck of a naked and crawling detainee. He e-mailed one home: "Look what I made Lynndie do." The now infamous pictures of detainees masturbating, he said, were a birthday gift for her.

Specialist Ambuhl, who has been discharged from the Army, was Private Graner's partner on the nightshift. If he and Private England were loud and bawdy - they made a video of themselves having sex - Ms. Ambuhl was soft-spoken and serious. Private England had joined the army to see the world; Ms. Ambuhl had already been on college study trips to Kenya and the Galapagos Islands. She had worked as a technician in a medical laboratory in Virginia, where she grew up, and like Private Graner, signed up to defend the nation after Sept. 11.

She had been involved with another soldier in the unit. But by late December, she had ended that relationship and started one with Private Graner. In e-mail messages, the two dreamily recalled their nights stolen away in the crowded prison cells where the military police lived.

"I was missing u too," she wrote just after Christmas 2003. "When I heard your voice coming up the stairs, it made me happy and kinda nervous too (goodnervous)." She reassured him that she would not get back together with her ex-boyfriend.

...

But on Jan. 13, a soldier slipped investigators a disk with the graphic photographs of detainees. The investigation began the next day.

Private Graner, quickly identified as the ringleader in the abuse, e-mailed his father in early March to discuss the accusations against him, then popped "more good news:" Private England was two months pregnant - he spelled her name Lynndee - and the pregnancy would most likely get them sent home from Iraq.

...

Private England - but not Private Graner - was sent back to the United States because of the pregnancy. The Army moved Private Graner and Ms. Ambuhl, along with four other soldiers under investigation, to a tent apart from the rest of their unit. And they resumed their relationship.

In April, Ms. Ambuhl e-mailed Private Graner an article headlined, "Study Finds Frequent Sex Raises Cancer Risk." She added, "We could have died last night."

Privates England and Graner were no longer speaking when their son was born in October. She named him Carter Allan England.

...

Ms. Ambuhl had gone back to work at the laboratory and was living with her parents. They accompanied her to Fort Hood for the wedding in April. Another man stood in for Private Graner, because he had begun serving his sentence and Ms. Ambuhl, as an admitted co-conspirator, is not allowed to see him.

Private England heard about the wedding from her lawyers, who heard about it from a reporter the Friday before her trial was to begin. She had worked out a plea agreement that limited her time in prison to 30 months, and the jury could have given her less time. She planned to have her son live with her mother while she was in prison.

...

The day before his testimony, Private Graner sent a note to reporters saying he regretted that "Lynn" had pleaded guilty and hoped her plea would get her a light sentence. Private England did not return any such affection. She leaned down to a courtroom artist sketching Mr. Graner: "Don't forget the horns and goatee."

Prosecutors advised defense lawyers against putting Private Graner on the stand, but they did it anyway. He testified that he had ordered Private England to remove a prisoner from a cell by a leash and that it had been a legitimate military exercise. This presented what seemed to be a contradiction - a defendant pleading guilty butpresenting a witness who testified that she was innocent. The military judge threw out her plea agreement and ordered that the court-martial process start over.

"It's nothing you did," the judge, Col. James L. Pohl, told her, "It's what he did."

Private England turned to Ms. Morris. "Well, he screws everything up, doesn't he?" Ms. Morris recalled Private England saying.

"I have to agree with you," Ms. Morris replied.

ENOUGH already with coverage of the runaway bride!

I say "Amen" to this article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/07/AR2005050700153_pf.html

Spoon

You know that Alannis Morisette song, "Ironic," where she sings about having "10,000 spoons, but all you need is a knife?"

Well, I need a spoon to eat my yogurt. But I can only find knives in the conference room. So I am eating my peach yogurt with a plastic knife.

Adoption Chronicles

E-mail me if you want to read the Adoption Chronicles, Part 1 or "How I Stayed Awake and Freaked Out Through 24 Hours of DYFS Parenting Classes."

The topic is a tad too personal for me to post for ALL the world to see. But friends are fine. And I need all your help, love and support. :)

Guess what song is in my head right now...

"Hollaback Girl" by Gwen Stefani. I really that song. And the video! Now that I have Digital Cable, I can actually watch videos again. It is just like the '80s.

Last week I had "Celebrate" by Kool and the Gang in my head. THAT was bad.

Scott is gone!

I was at a bar last night and they had "American Idol" on. But it is okay since it was not MY television set.

Scott got voted off. Yea! The dumpling with glasses is GONE. Back to Ohio and the phone he so likes to throw.

I did NOT watch

In case you were wondering if I changed my mind about the travesty that is "American Idol." No. I did not. Didn't watch. Won't watch.

Let's stop picking on that poor runaway bride

Really. Seriously. No one got hurt, except maybe her fiance.

The woman was facing a wedding with 600 guests and 14 bridesmaids. If that doesn't spell "nervous breakdown," I don't know what does.

She didn't kill anyone. She didn't rob a bank. Let's all chill. We are supposed to be HAPPY that she is not kidnapped and dead. Not angry at her.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/04/30/wilbanks.found/